Confusing tech-support responses

[lederhosen]

"This behaviour is intentional. Also, we fixed it in the next release." - SAS tech support guy in response to my bug report.

(Am coming to the conclusion that SAS EG works really well if you know exactly what your program needs to do and can debug each step perfectly before you create the next one, and... not so well otherwise.)

Comments

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

In this case, it's motivation for me to stop being lazy and code my own SQL joins. Which has other advantages, since a project with multiple Query Tool steps violates the principle of DRY in a bad way - if you add a new variable to your dataset at the start, you have to manually push that variable through every following step in the program :-/

Basically, EG is designed as a simple and user-friendly SAS interface for people who don't want to have to write their own SAS code - but the point-and-click functionality isn't really suited for complex projects of the sort that a lot of us work on. It does have some good points but it took me a while to realise that some of the "time-saving" features are more trouble than they're worth.

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

I know SQL has some disadvantages, but some of the new things they're designing to replace it frighten me. Sometimes simple > powerful. Good luck on smokin' the joins.