Shell Programming and Scripting

I write lots of SAS programs and would like to create a script that allows me to have a template each time I create a new program file.

Specs:
I use EVIM for my editor. I run SAS in batch mode. We use RedHat 6.
I don't use c shell.

I want a script that will do the following:

> scriptname newfilename

This then opens a file in EVIM editor entitled newfilename.sas. I want the file to also have a commented-out header box with my name, date, and some other things that I'll have to update each time.

I think this is probably pretty easy to do, but I'm stuck...new to shell scripting.

Thanks for any help.

Code:

#!/bin/sh

if [ -e "$1" ]
then
        echo "$1 already exists" >&2
        exit 1
fi

if ! cp /path/to/template "$1"
then
        echo "Couldn't create $1 from template" >&2
        exit 1
fi

evim "$1"

Thanks!
Another question.
What is the &2 in your code snippet?

Redirects error messages into standard error where they belong.