c++ vs. SAS

[BrentS]

Hi everyone.

I am about to enter a Masters in Stats program that has a heavy SAS computing component including a development project. I am happy about this becasue SAS is pretty much the industry standard in statistical software packages.

In addition I would like to keep improving my c++ chops. Right now I only have 2 quarters of c++ but would like to keep improving and learning.

A couple questions:

1) It seems like the job market wants either c++ programmers or SAS programmers but really has no need for a person with both skills. Is this true?

2) Which c++ courses should I take that would best prepare me for the fin eng job market (i.e. what material should I be trying to learn)?

Thanks everyone. Any advice on career development is always appreciated!

 

[Bastian Gross]

Hi BrentS,

to my mind SAS is the best software package in statistics, but SAS is not ideally suited for applications software. So you should improve your C++ programming skills.

SAS-programmers prepare data and applications software programmers use statistical evaluation.

 

[Uncle Max]

1) SAS is designed for statistical analysis of large data amounts. If you want to use C++ for the same purpose you will have to re-invent wheel most of the time.

2) Start with Mark Joshi's book on C++. It's very well written. After finishing it, you should have a pretty good idea what to do next.

 

[Sachin]

Hi,

I work for a firm that almost exclusively uses SAS. There are few applications on C++, but all computational parts are done in SAS. The underlying reason is quite simple-we have humongous data and SAS alone can handle that.