The reader has been introduced to SAS and now understands how SAS^® software has evolved over the years, from supplying analytic tools to building an analytic platform on which not just the tools run, but horizontal and vertical solutions as well.

The reader has been made aware of several ways to access the SAS programming language, which includes command-line input, GUIs such as SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Studio, and purpose-built GUIs for specific horizontal and vertical solutions. 

The reader has been given step-by-step instructions on how to set up their own SAS^® University Edition of SAS and has been lead through a few simple examples of submitting both data step code and a SAS PROC.

The reader has been shown the difference between the SAS Studio SAS Programmer perspective and the SAS Studio Visual Programmer perspective and was lead through an example of running a process flow in the Visual Programmer perspective.

The reader has been made aware of the different SAS data storage capabilities as well as some of the internal workings of SAS, such as how SAS stores data as either numeric or character, and the importance of FORMATS/INFORMATS, and in particular how these work hand-in-hand with how SAS stores date- and time-related data.

In Chapter 2, Working with Data Using SAS^® Software of this book, the reader will learn how to make data within SAS, bring data in from external data sources as well as continuing to write and execute SAS programs!