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Interview with Ron Cody
Authorline chats with Ron Cody about his newest book - SAS Functions by Example. He is the author of several other books: Cody's Data Cleaning Techniques Using SAS Software, Longitudinal Data and SAS: A Programmer's Guide, SAS Programing by Example, and The SAS Workbook and Solutions Set.
- Authorline (AL): What was your motivation for writing your book?
- Ron Cody (RC): You mean besides the Author's dinner at SUGI every year? On a more serious note,
I felt that a book on SAS functions was needed, especially with the new functions added with Version 9.
- AL: Who are you targeting with your book?
- RC: Just about all users of Base SAS who program in the DATA step. I'm hoping that even more advanced programmers
will find something of interest in the book.
- AL: What features of the book are you especially pleased with?
- RC: Well, besides the picture on the back cover, I am pleased with the tutorial on Perl regular expressions
and the examples of the new character functions.
- AL: How will your book benefit SAS users?
- RC: I am hoping that this book will serve both as a text book (to be read cover-to-cover) and a reference on SAS
functions. I believe that seeing one or more examples of every function in the book will be especially
useful to beginning users of SAS. There are even some useful macros that readers may want to add to
their macro libraries.
- AL: What were some of the joys of writing this book?
- RC: Before I started on the Perl regular expression chapter, I had never even heard of regular expressions
and had no idea what they were. It was a struggle at first, but when I finally started to understand the
power of this new class of functions, it was fun coming up with examples.
- AL: How did you develop as a writer while you were creating this book?
- RC: Right from the start, I realized that to write a book of this magnitude (I believe it's almost 400 pages)
would require me to be more organized than I usually am. Having a fairly rigid structure (purpose, syntax,
examples, and sample program) helped me keep on track.
- AL: What did you learn while writing this book that would be important for other authors to know?
- RC: You really want to tell my secrets to the competition? Actually, I wrote most of this book while
on sabbatical from my faculty position here at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Being
able to devote several hours at a time to writing was especially helpful. At times, I had to force myself
to quit for the day. I found that writing too close to bedtime resulted in SAS dreams, not something
I would recommend.
- AL: How did you decide to publish with SAS?
- RC: My past experiences with the folks in SAS Publishing were so positive that there was no question who would
be publishing my functions book .
- AL: Are you glad you decided to publish with SAS? If so, what has made the experience a good one?
- RC: I had access to SAS developers to clarify many of the new functions. My special thanks to Jason Secosky
who sat down with me and explained the mysteries of regular expressions. The reviewers, many of them
SAS employees, were terrific! I can't thank them enough.
- AL: Your book will be going to the printer in just a few weeks. How does it feel to be in the home stretch of such a long project?
- RC: Great!
- AL: What advice would you give to potential authors?
- RC: Ask any of the SAS BBU authors and they will all tell you that it's more work and harder than you may think.
I feel that it is important to be able to spend enough time each day writing. Trying to fit in a few hours
in the evening after a hard day's work would take a lot of perseverance.
- AL: How were you able to balance your time between your career and writing this book?
- RC: I am fortunate that the academic nature of my job allows me to write during "business hours."
Also, having a six month sabbatical allowed me to devote large blocks of time each day to writing.
- AL: When you aren't writing or consulting, how do you like to spend your free time?
- RC: My wife and I did some traveling. You can tell the chapters I wrote while sampling the local
Tuscan wines. I also tried to get in as much bike riding as possible.
