Acknowledgments

It took a village to write this book. The village started out small, as my wife Paula supported me by cheerfully allowing me the time and attention that it takes to write a book. But the village quickly expanded.

Writing and programming both build upon what others have done. Many programmers contributed ideas, shared code, or started the thought processes moving in a fruitful direction. Thanks go to Haikuo Bian, Art Carpenter, Craig Dickstein, Paul Dorfman, Ron Fehd, Judy Loren, Phil Mason, and Ian Whitlock. Other people deserve to be mentioned, but were difficult to track down. I utilized one idea from a SAS Communities post, and asked the author (Tom Abernathy) if he would like to be mentioned here. He responded that he had seen the idea in an earlier John King post. When I contacted John King, he also noted that he was not the original author.

SAS Publications staff were remarkable throughout. Julie Platt orchestrated SAS’s efforts, and helped shepherd through my nit-picking contract requirements. The technical reviewers (Pat Garrett and Russ Tyndall) did a stellar job. Senior Editor John West survived the added burden of dealing with my frequent requests. Kathy Restivo edited and revised the copy to make it more readable. And Cindy Puryear designed the marketing plan beginning with the astounding book cover that you have already seen.

Finally, thanks also go out to the many end users who, through their unrelenting requests, forced me to develop some of these techniques. I hope you can build upon what you find here.