Michael Mayer | Principal Solution Engineer
Posit PBC

BioTechX Europe Day 1 @ 12:45

Altair SLC™ as an enabler for polyglot data science in the era of LLMs crossing the bridge between commercial and open-source software

age of R and Python languages for data science activities is increasing. Students are leaving university with experience in R or Python, but they may have had little or no exposure to SAS language which is dominant in the clinical space. Many companies have created an abundance of intellectual property written in SAS language that supports mission-critical processes and contains validated, trusted code. Migrating this code to R or Python is a daunting, expensive and risky process. While LLMs can in some cases help transform SAS language code into R or Python, there are complexities in ensuring correct results.This leads many companies to continue to run vital processes using SAS language. However, there is an opportunity to enrich essential processing using languages such as R or Python with open-source libraries. This typically means that users would need to use two distinct platforms at their company, one for open-source and one for SAS language, switching back and forth as needed. As a consequence, there is an immediate need for more integrated solutions in gold standard IDE's such as RStudio, JupyterLab, VS Code and Positron.Such integration can happen at multiple levels:
• Altair SLC is a SAS language compiler and environment with a flexible deployment architecture. It includes desktop, web, server and container-based solution combinations. Altair offers a web-based IDE via a VS Code extension for SLC, available in the VS Code marketplace. This opens the opportunity to use this extension in Positron, Posit PBC's latest IDE that is based on a fork of VS Code. This allows teams to use R, Python and SAS language through a single interface.  
• SLC includes PROC R that allows running R code and using R data within a SAS language program
• SLC includes PROC Python that allows running Python and using Python data within a SAS language program
• SLC comes with a Python package that allows running SAS language and related data from within a Python program. The same package can be used from R via the reticulate package.
• SLC will in future include an R package that allows running SAS language and related data from within an R program The presentation will provide a brief overview of SLC followed by 5 concept demonstrations:1) Running SLC code in Positron on Posit Workbench2) Running R code within a SAS language program using SLC3) Running Python code within a SAS language program using SLC4) Calling SLC Code from R and Python codes5) Integrate SAS language into a Shiny application using SLC hosted via Posit Connect for interactive data visualization

Andy Ratcliffe, Senior Solution Architect, ALTAIR

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Andy Ratcliffe / Altair SLC™ as an enabler for polyglot data science in the era of LLMs crossing the bridge between commercial and open-source software

Andy Ratcliffe, Senior Solution Architect,
ALTAIR

A seasoned leader in the life sciences sector, Andrew has a strong focus on technology and business. Currently serving as Senior Solutions Architect for Healthcare & Life Sciences at Altair, he brings 30+ years of experience in application building, data warehousing, analytics, and SAS...

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Michael Mayer, Principal Solution Engineer, Posit PBC

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Michael Mayer / Altair SLC™ as an enabler for polyglot data science in the era of LLMs crossing the bridge between commercial and open-source software

Michael Mayer, Principal Solution Engineer,
Posit PBC

Michael is a principal solution engineer at Posit PBC. A scientist by training and at heart, Michael holds a PhD in theoretical astrophysics from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Following a postdoc fellowship in Cambridge, UK, Michael left science and worked for companies like Red Hat, NEC...

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