What is Reddit's opinion of The Little SAS® Book: A Primer, Sixth Edition?

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For SAS, try coming up with simple projects that interest you using Census Data and practice with the very basics and work your way up. Start learning to import delimited files, manipulating datasets using data steps and playing with proc freq and proc print, as these are really the basics you’ll build a lot of your skills off of. Try to aim to build a report of your own with these tools and go from there.

For absolute beginners, I recommend the Little SAS book (https://www.amazon.com/Little-SAS-Book-Primer-Sixth/dp/1642952834). I consider myself pretty fluent in SAS and have done more complex stuff like network analysis and various regression analysis and still keep this book at my desk at all times because it’s really helpful for basic, basic stuff.

As you get more advanced, just start googling your questions and consider registering on sascommunities to ask questions. Everyone there is really welcoming and helpful.

Coincidentally enough, I took the SAS Base Programmer Certification exam for the first time today. I first used SAS in 2016 in college statistics courses and have about 1 year of in-field pharmaceutical experience, so I probably knew more than enough going into exam from that alone.

Firstly, take advantage of SAS OnDemand for Academics. It's a browser version of Base SAS that runs on Linux servers. Anyone can use it for non-commercial purposes, whether as a student or educator or independent learner. It offers helpful tips as you type SAS keywords and displays output as SQL tables.

I would highly recommend The Little SAS Book as your first reference to learning the language. It's well worth its price and the examples are very easy to follow. I reviewed it for a couple weeks earlier this month for exam preparation, and I can confidently say that this book alone should get you a passing grade on the SAS Base Programmer Certification exam.

The book doesn't cover everything about SAS by any means but if you work with SAS for personal purposes and get creative with its tools then you might learn some new things as you go on as well. Also learn to read the log and how to resolve common errors.

If you haven't already, refer to everything on this page, including the Exam Content Guide and the Practice Exam (which you should take in a simulated exam setting to whatever extent possible).

Good luck!

My recommendation: Find a copy of the Little SAS Book and go through it.