#Code Performance

[greatonlinetrainingsposts]

Best Practices in SAS Programming: Ensuring Code Efficiency and Performance

SAS (Statistical Analysis System) programming is a powerful tool used by data professionals for statistical analysis, data management, and reporting. Whether you’re working with large datasets in clinical trials, performing business analysis, or conducting complex predictive modeling, optimizing code efficiency and performance is essential. Writing efficient and well-performing SAS code not only speeds up the process but also improves the accuracy and reliability of your results.

In this article, we’ll explore best practices in SAS programming that can help ensure your code runs efficiently, produces accurate results, and remains easy to maintain.

1. Optimize Data Access

Data access is one of the first things to consider when optimizing SAS code. The more efficiently you can access and manipulate your data, the faster your code will run.

Use Indexing

When working with large datasets, indexing is a key technique. By creating indexes on key variables, SAS can retrieve data faster, reducing the time it takes to search through large datasets. Indexing should be applied to frequently used columns, such as those used for sorting or joining datasets.

Efficient Data Management

Keeping your data in memory rather than repeatedly reading from disk can enhance performance. By managing memory settings in SAS, you can load data into memory, which significantly speeds up processing times, especially for larger datasets.

2. Minimize Data Movement

Data movement refers to the unnecessary reading, writing, or transferring of data between different locations. Reducing this helps to improve overall performance.

Use Efficient Filtering

Instead of filtering data after loading it into memory, try applying conditions during the initial data retrieval process. This can reduce the amount of data you need to load into memory and process. For example, filtering data directly in the where clause of queries can significantly speed up your operations.

Avoid Unnecessary Duplicates

Duplicating data unnecessarily can waste time and resources. Instead of creating multiple temporary datasets, merge or join datasets directly in SAS to minimize overhead. Reducing the number of intermediate datasets you create will help keep the process lean and efficient.

3. Leverage Efficient Procedures

Certain SAS procedures are optimized to handle large datasets efficiently. As a SAS programmer, it’s essential to know which procedures will deliver the best performance for specific tasks.

Choose the Right Procedures

For instance, when summarizing data, PROC MEANS is often more efficient than PROC SQL for large datasets, as it uses specialized algorithms for calculating summary statistics. Similarly, when sorting datasets, PROC SORT is optimized for performance and can be faster than alternatives.

4. Write Efficient Loops and Macros

Loops and macros are common in SAS programming for automating repetitive tasks. However, if not used properly, they can become bottlenecks in your code.

Minimize the Use of Loops

While loops are a great tool, inefficient loops that process data one step at a time can slow down execution, especially with large datasets. Instead, use vectorized operations where possible to handle multiple data points in a single operation.

Optimize Macro Usage

Macros are powerful in SAS because they allow you to write reusable code. However, overusing macros or creating overly complex ones can hurt performance. Ensure that your macros are efficient and only used when necessary, and keep them simple to avoid unnecessary complexity.

5. Optimize Output and Reporting

Generating output reports such as tables and graphs can sometimes cause performance issues. By optimizing this process, you ensure that your results are produced quickly and efficiently.

Minimize Unnecessary Output

When generating reports, avoid including unnecessary rows or columns in your output. Directing output to external files, such as HTML or PDF, rather than displaying it on the screen or in the log, can improve both speed and usability.

Use Efficient Graphing Procedures

For complex visualizations, using the appropriate graphing tools in SAS, such as ODS GRAPHICS, can provide better performance than older procedures. These tools are specifically designed to handle large datasets while producing high-quality visual output.

Watch the video here:

6. Maintain Readable and Modular Code

Efficiency is important, but readability and maintainability are equally critical. Clean, well-organized code is essential for long-term success in SAS programming, especially when working in a team environment.

Add Meaningful Comments

Commenting your code is essential for explaining the logic behind complex operations, the purpose of specific procedures, and any assumptions you’ve made. Proper comments help others (and your future self) understand the code and maintain it more easily.

Use Modular Programming

Break down your code into smaller, reusable modules. This not only improves readability but also helps in debugging and testing specific sections of the code more efficiently. Consider using macros to encapsulate common tasks and avoid redundant code.

Conclusion

Optimizing SAS programming practices is essential for improving both the efficiency and performance of your data analysis. By focusing on effective data access, reducing unnecessary data movement, using the right procedures, and writing clean, modular code, you can enhance the speed and reliability of your SAS applications.

Remember, while performance is crucial, clarity and maintainability should not be sacrificed. By balancing both, you can create high-performing SAS code that is easy to manage and scale for future projects.

[adyophene]

The Greatest Showcat! [Lucihusk/Royalflush]

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

For the last month or so I’ve been combing through old Taylor interviews and ended up creating an archive of them. Since it’s finished, I figured I’d share this resource with everyone else!

[joekitsu]

This flavour of superbat:

But also, This flavour of superbat:

Different flavours of devotion is always beautiful

Hozier - Someone New; Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?

David Corenswet as Superman/Clark Kent and Robert Pattinson as Batman/Bruce Wayne

[mafuyuakgae]

a bigger cage is still a cage

[diana-andraste]

The Sisters G, Karla and Eleanor Gutöhrlein, King of Jazz publicity image, 1930

[prophetmutual]

I always forget how good the actor is for Rogers bc obviously Woodes Rogers is not occupying as much brain space as other black sails characters but then ill be watching the show especially the last season and he's stealing scenes left and right like damn. this guy is good.

[norriszn]

MAX'S TWITCH STREAM: MONDAY | max talking about how he just wants lando to win... atp doesn't matter if he's trackside or watching from the couch 😭😭😭😭 may 26th 2025

max: "you're going to silverstone in july for the gp?" yes, i'll be at silverstone. "you guys (quadrant team / lando's closest friends probby) didn't do monaco this year, especially?" i mean, i'm all right, man. i go to a lot of races. of course, a monaco win is pretty special. i've been there when he's won, so it wasn't like miami before... where i was maybe going to go (😭😭😭😭), then he got his first win, that was like, fuck (😭😭😭😭) i'm just happy he seems to have his mojo back, man. plenty more races to go to this year. i just want him to perform, bro. even if i don't go to any fucking races, just go out there and win, man.

[anghraine]

One of the weirder parts of being formally tested for autism as an adult—apart from the hellscape of hours of math hell—was that they kept asking me for my conclusions or opinions about things I had very little knowledge of. These weren't basic facts you'd expect someone to pick up in the course of a standard US education, and I kept repeating that I would have to do actual research to form opinions on subjects I had no significant information about.

Obviously, "not opinionated" isn't a major problem for me when I do have a reasonable amount of information, but my eventual diagnosis specifically mentioned that I kept repeating that I would have to do more research to acquire the necessary baseline of data for forming opinions on [whatever], and that the phrasing of my various refusals tended to be identical or very similar (I didn't see any need to alter my wording when I was simply repeating the same position over and over).

*cough*

Anyway this is also about Star Trek. (Surprise.) I knew Spock would be relatable before we started the grand TOS watch, but did not expect him to be the most relatable character on television ever, and his continual refusals to deliver opinions without enough data for informed theories was actually a big part of this.

[disgustinglyonline]

i love you, HONEY

[mortal-kombat-1]

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 73: Assorted Performances XII

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration.

This is the last of the already prepped Performances polls left. Have more suggestions? Feel free to weigh in.

Unless there is a landslide of suggestions, we'll be going back to the 20th century and earlier soon. I do have some music polls I want to run in February, which will effect the posting schedule.

[lizzybeeee]

Me watching my Inquisitor walk off with Solas at the end of the game like :) "aw cute ..hey if Mythal hadn't told you to stop would you have murdered her,," (I haven't played the other endings yet).

This!!!

(Obviously, not murdered her personally, but he absolutely had no qualms about doing the ritual once more - knowing the consequences of it.)

Let me preempt this by saying that I wanted there to be a happy/fulfilling ending to Solas and Lavellan. I'm not a blind hater! Just someone who finds it very hard to put my own Lavellan in the place of the 'Lavellan' provided to us in DATV.

The Solas/Lavellan relationship already was kind of iffy (power imbalance, constantly dragging her culture, removing her vallaslin/then dumping her, constantly lying to her, etc...) but DAI did a great job of making you feel sympathetic towards his plight - especially after Trespasser! He woke up in a world so divorced from his own that it was unrecognizable - the people he had done so much for were suffering from the consequences of his actions, justified as they may have been at the time (stopping the evanuris). His actions led to great suffering in the pursuit of preventing even greater suffering.

Even after we learned of his plans in Trespasser, it was very much: "cool motive, still murder."

I felt sympathetic towards Solas and the implication that we could change his mind, given to us in Trespasser, gave me hope that we would be able to convince him of another path. That he could find a place in Thedas as it is now and look to the future. That was why I chose the option to try and get through to Solas, despite knowing that his plan would lead to mass death/terror if it went ahead.

I always expected the Veil to fall at some point, but i was hoping there'd be some more nuance to it than: veil gone, demons everywhere, lots of people die. Well, I was very wrong lmao.

But, if anything, the game made me entirely unsympathetic towards Solas.

The moment he started his ritual he chose the old elven empire over Lavellan - over her family, friends, home, culture, and anything else she may have loved/valued.

And he did this twice.

He chose to pursue lowering the Veil - knowing that thousands would likely die. For all his insistence of 'minimizing the damage' he went in knowing that many more people would die because of his actions. There was no justification of stopping the evanuris this time either - no excuse of not knowing the potential consequences of his actions like the first time.

He chose to begin the ritual that ended up releasing the Elven Gods - knowing full well the risks it entailed.

He killed Varric - whether by accident or not, it was by his hand.

He chose to use blood magic to manipulate Rook into thinking that Varric was alive - puppeting his corpse around in Rook's eyes and putting his words into Varric's mouth.

He chose to manipulate, mold, and guilt Rook into the old 'switcheroo' in his mind palace/regret prison

He chose to 'free' the elven people by bringing down the Veil - regardless of their feelings about it (elven Rook can call him out on this!), never mind the consequences or ramifications of a bunch of people suddenly having their bodily autonomy overwritten by now being magic/having immortality.

He looked at the devastation caused the by the Gods and still went ahead with trying to bring down the veil again.

These are the thing he does in-game - not even mentioning making the dwarves/titans tranquil, creating the blight, started the chain of events that led to SOUTHERN THEDAS BEING DESTROYED, and taking my good gear from Inquisition!

Aside from the 'all lore leads to Solas' reveal just being really dull it also does nothing to help with making me sympathetic to him as a character. The audacity of this man to say: "it was like walking in a world of tranquil" when he fucking lobotomized the dwarves/titans is wild in retrospect.

If he didn't do the ritual at the beginning, if something else went wrong and that resulted in the God's being released, I could understand why a Lavellan would still want to get through to him. It would make sense - she could stop him from doing it again at the end too! You can still have him conflicted and torn between the restoring the past or pursuing the future - but this doesn't happen!

He never chose Lavellan in this game! Hell, it's Mythal who convinces him to stop?!! He owes her nothing! He's learned nothing from this!!! He's only stopped because Mythal 'pardoned/freed' him - once again showing that he values the ancient elves/mythal over her!!!

How impactful would it have been to have him choose Lavellan over Mythal! To show us this! Mythal, who 'crawled through the ages for a reckoning' (which was retconned to her being sad about the elves lmao) telling Solas to go through with the ritual and him touching grass and saying 'no'.

It's something I feel was wildly out of character for him as well - he never came across in DAI as being subservient to Mythal, if anything the ending cutscene gave me the impression they were equals?!

After everything he did in this game - after all we learn about what he did in the past - I had no interest in reasoning/appealing with his ass. None whatsoever. My inquisitor/Lavellan asking if Solas can be reasoned with only made me regret making that choice - perhaps other people's inquisitor's would say that, but mine would not, especially after everything that happened in game.

She came across as delusional: standing on the ruins of a blighted Minrathous, the south blighted to hell, dead all around them, blight tentacles everywhere, a gaping hole in the Fade right next to them:

Lavellan: "I forgive you! All you have to do is stop." Solas: "But I cannot."

Boom! There it is.

At this point it's not romantic, it's just sad! Sad that she's spent 10 years pining after a man who seemed to learn nothing at all from what happened in DAI.

------------------------

There should have been some sort of a dialogue option with Lavellan right before you go into the big fight - she can ask you what you think of Solas, if he's truly regretful for everything that happened, and then you can give her an answer that can 'change' her approach to Solas in the end - giving the player some agency as to how their Inquisitor would actually respond to this.

Ending One: Bye Bye Bye

Rook: "HE'S A GUY."

alternatively, "Look around you! Look at what Solas has done - what he's threatening to do even now after all of this! You gave him every chance to turn away from this path. So did Varric...and look at what he did!"

Lavellan is bitter/angry with Solas: "It seems we never were people to you after all."

Refers to him as 'Fen'harel' and not Solas - dig the knife in deeper, give us angst!

"Just go. You love the Fade, don't you? Enough to do all this - enough to kill Varric for your pride in a dead world that no longer exists. We were never 'real' to you, were we?"

Solas says his goodbyes, expresses his love, and Lavellan steps back.

Solas leaves voluntarily, his 'situation-ship very much over', to stew in his regrets for the rest of his life.

Ending Two: Bittersweet Goodbye

Rook: "Girl, it's been 10 years."

alternatively, "You loved him once, perhaps you still do even now - after all he's done - but love wasn't enough. Love does not excuse this."

Lavellan is firm with Solas, does not excuse his actions, but has a bitter sweet farewell: "I had hoped…it doesn't matter what I hoped. You made your choice - it wasn't me. It wasn't our friends. It wasn't this world. You can make a choice now - if I ever mattered you. If I, if our friends, were ever real to you."

They can have a final goodbye, a goodbye smooch, and then he can go off to the Fade.

Bittersweet ending - acknowledge what they had and then provide closure.

Ending Three: Happy Ending (?)

Rook: "He didn't mean it babe. He's tots sorry."

alternatively, "He seems to regret what's happened - I've seen his memories, his regrets. He believes this is the only path he has. Perhaps you can convince him to find another."

Default Lavellan ending basically

"There is no fate but the love we share" blah blah blah

As happy an ending as it can be when you have Lavellan fuck off to the Fade - leaving behind her life, friends, family, and whatever remains of the world for an eternity.

I'm being mean but I genuinely wanted a happy/fulfilling ending for them both too - despite the fact that this game seems to want that ending as well, it did little to convince me of that. :(

I genuinely liked Solas in DAI - despite his flaws, I thought his romance was compelling and I was hoping to be able to convince him to change/alter his path. I can see what they were trying to do with him in DATV but it's so hard to feel sympathy for him when we see/know the results of his actions. The story in this game is doing anything but convincing me to give him a 'happy ending'.

'Love' can't excuse what he did and neither would my Lavellan.

Also RIP Sandal's Prophecy about the Fade lmao

[moxidi-fanarts-and-sketches]

If it's all in my head, tell me now,

Tell me i've got it wrong somehow.

I know my love should be celebrated,

But you tolerate it.

[diana-andraste]

The Sisters G, Karla and Eleanor Gutöhrlein, from a photo-essay published in Modern Screen, 1930.