=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 08:38:22 +1000
Reply-To: tchur@optushome.com.au
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Tim Churches <tchur@OPTUSHOME.COM.AU>
Organization: Totally disorganised
Subject: Re: SAS LE (Re: Confused on the implementation of the 1000 row
limit on SAS tables)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Kevin Myers wrote:
> P.S. - Being a 20 year veteran SAS user and consultant, a former SAS
> employee, and a Certified SAS Developer, of course I realize only too well
> that SAS has all sorts of great features and capabilities that products like
> Excel and Access can't even remotely begin to compete with. But it's very
> difficult to show someone else what a great product SAS really is when you
> can't get 'em past the initial 1000 obs limit stumbling block imposed by LE!
Have a look at DBMS/Analyst, which comes with DBMS/Copy. DBMS/Analyst
provides a near clone of the SAS data step syntax and of the most often
used analytical procedures in Base SAS. Plus it reads and writes many
different data formats (including SAS datasets), so it is like having
SAS/ACCESS for * on steroids as well. And no obs limits, and no expiry
date. Apart from being a useful tool in its own right (eg where you want
to perform data manipulation using SAS syntax but SAS is not available),
it is probably a better way to introduce others to the utility of SAS
than struggling with the arbitrary limits and ommissions in SAS LE. Oh,
you also get DBMS/Explorer, a low-end but useful interactive data
exploration package, thrown in for free with DBMS/Copy and and DBMS/Analyst.
DBMS/Copy plus DBMS/Analyst plus DBMS/Explorer costs a bit more than SAS
LE - RRP of US$295 versus US$125 for SAS LE - but at least you are not
shelling out for handicapware. There is also a demo version of DBMS/Copy
and DBMS/Analyst, which is limited to just 100 obs, but at least it is
free, which is what SAS LE should be, methinks.
See http://www.conceptual.com for more information on DBMS/Copy and
DBMS/Analyst. BTW I don't have any connection with Conceptual except as
a satisfied customer.
Tim C
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kevin Myers" <KevinMyers@AUSTIN.RR.COM>
> Newsgroups: bit.listserv.sas-l
> To: <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 5:07 PM
> Subject: SAS LE (Re: Confused on the implementation of the 1000 row limit on
> SAS tables)
>
>
>
>>I too recently purchased and am evaluating SAS LE. You can create large
>>tables to your heart's content, but you just can't READ more than 1000
>>observations from any single table at once. Yeah, there are some ways
>
> that
>
>>you could probably get around that to some degree, but it could get really
>>ugly if anyone tried to actually accomplish very much that way. Besides,
>>there are lurkers at SAS who monitor this newsgroup. Lets not give them
>
> any
>
>>reason to cripple this product more than it already is!!!
>>
>>Personally, I sure think that SAS should do something more along the lines
>>of Oracle's (free!!!) Personal Edition. With Oracle Personal, you can
>>create any size tables that you want. It's only Oracle's more advanced
>>"enterprise" and "server" class features that are limited or disabled,
>
> such
>
>>as parallel tasking (hence you are encouraged to get the real thing if you
>>need to process lots of data quickly), multiple user-remote access
>>capabilities, Internet publishing, and stuff like that.
>>
>>Unfortunately, I don't think that SAS is really going to accomplish very
>>much at all with a product that is limited to only reading 1000 rows at a
>>time. There just aren't going to be enough folks out there who will be
>>willing to take the time to "play around" with SAS such an unusable level,
>>especially if they are going to have to spend any money to do so. SAS
>
> needs
>
>>to make the product realistically useful for some real work before most
>>people are going to bother spending any money at all for it. And, SAS had
>>better do that if they want to have any hope at all of increasing their
>>loyal customer base through this approach.
>>
>>LE is more like a demo than a real product. I would have much rather seen
>>SAS come out with limited subsets of Base, Stat, Graph, Access (PC
>
> products
>
>>only), FSP, AF, and Connect (local host only), (no Share, no EIS, no
>>Internet), with no size limitations for something on the order of $500
>>(competitive with Microsoft Office products, for example). Even a yearly
>>renewal on something like that would probably be ok. Another possibility
>>***might*** be to release older versions (e.g. 6.12?) at a very
>>substantially reduced price, with zero or limited support. That way users
>>could get a lot done, but would still be encouraged to spend money for new
>>features. Even just a larger obs limit on LE as is would sure help a lot
>>(say 100K obs?). Geez, even my 5 year old version of Excel can handle
>
> 64K
>
>>rows at once! And of course MS Access has no such limitations. How can
>
> SAS
>
>>afford to let their product (LE or not) look so bad in comparison? You
>
> just
>
>>can't do much of anything really useful with only 1000 obs, and I sure
>
> hope
>
>>some other folks out there will provide some similar feedback.
>>
>>On the other hand, it's actually great that SAS finally came out with
>>SOMETHING along the lines of LE. At least they're making a little bit of
>>progress...
>>
>>My $.02 worth.
>>
>>Kevin M.
>>
>>P.S. - My installation of LE seemed to go without a hitch at first.
>>However, no icons for SAS, EG, or anything else were created in my start
>>menu. There was just an empty "The SAS System" folder. So, I created my
>>own shortcut to start SAS. But I wonder what other shortcuts were
>
> supposed
>
>>to be in there, along with corresponding properties, etc?
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Roger DeAngelis" <xlr82sas@AOL.COM>
>>Newsgroups: bit.listserv.sas-l
>>To: <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 2:59 PM
>>Subject: Confused on the implementation of the 1000 row limit on SAS
>
> tables
>
>>
>>>Hi All,
>>>
>>>305 data z;
>>>306 set tst tst2;
>>>307 run;
>>>
>>>NOTE: There were 1000 observations read from the data set WORK.TST.
>>>NOTE: There were 1000 observations read from the data set WORK.TST2.
>>>NOTE: The data set WORK.Z has 2000 observations and 3 variables.
>>>NOTE: DATA statement used:
>>> real time 0.09 seconds
>>> cpu time 0.09 seconds
>>>
>>>
>>>Is it up to the honesty of the user to restrict the creation of tables
>>>with more than 1000 obs, or was SAS suppose to implement changes
>>>to prevent users from creating tables with more than 1000 obs?
>>>
>>>I cannot be reached by email or post to SAS-L, Mon-Fri, so please
>>>respond to the list. I also do not have access to SAS LE Mon-Fri.
>>>
>>>So far I have spent less that 4 hours working with SAS LE.
>>>
>>>No I am not on weekend release from the US prison system.
>>>However, I am working out of town.
>>>
>>>TIA
>>>Roger DeAngelis
>>>xlr82sas@aol.com
>>>xlr82sas@hotmail.com
>>>//members.aol.com/xlr82sas/utl.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>NOTE: Copyright (c) 1999-2001 by SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA.
>>>NOTE: SAS (r) Proprietary Software Release 8.2 (TS2M0)
>>> Licensed to The SAS Learning Edition V1.0, Site 0042234001.
>>>NOTE: This session is executing on the WIN_PRO platform.
>>>
>>>305 data z;
>>>306 set tst tst2;
>>>307 run;
>>>
>>>NOTE: There were 1000 observations read from the data set WORK.TST.
>>>NOTE: There were 1000 observations read from the data set WORK.TST2.
>>>NOTE: The data set WORK.Z has 2000 observations and 3 variables.
>>>NOTE: DATA statement used:
>>> real time 0.09 seconds
>>> cpu time 0.09 seconds
>>>
>>>
>>>proc contents data=z;
>>>run;
>>>
>>>The SAS System
>>>
>>>The CONTENTS Procedure
>>>
>>>Data Set Name: WORK.Z Observations:
>>> 2000
>>>Member Type: DATA Variables:
>>> 3
>>>Engine: V8 Indexes:
>>> 0
>>>Created: 15:23 Saturday, July 20, 2002 Observation
>>>Length: 24
>>>Last Modified: 15:23 Saturday, July 20, 2002 Deleted
>>>Observations: 0
>>>Protection: Compressed:
>>> NO
>>>Data Set Type: Sorted:
>>> NO
>>>Label:
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Engine/Host Dependent Information-----
>>>
>>>Data Set Page Size: 4096
>>>Number of Data Set Pages: 13
>>>First Data Page: 1
>>>Max Obs per Page: 168
>>>Obs in First Data Page: 115
>>>Number of Data Set Repairs: 0
>>>File Name: d:\work\_TD1112\z.sas7bdat
>>>Release Created: 8.0202M0
>>>Host Created: WIN_PRO
>>>
>>>
>>>-----Alphabetic List of Variables and Attributes-----
>>>
>>># Variable Type Len Pos
>>>fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
>>>1 i Num 8 0
>>>3 type Char 5 16
>>>2 x Num 8 8
>>
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