4 ms·

> I don't think there's any replacement for Excel That would be great. People over use Excel to no end and it causes problems. They need to use programming. Ge

> I don't think there's any replacement for Excel That would be great. People over use Excel to no end and it causes problems. They need to use programming. Get people with R or Python and Pandas, or some other statistical program. (88% of Excel Spreadsheets contain human errors) These are human error. Use a program not an Excel sheet. https://www.forbes.com/sites/salesforce/2014/09/13/sorry-spreadsheet-errors/#69c7221b56ab https://www.forbes.com/sites/salesforce/2014/09/13/sorry-spr... One error cost $6 Billion in the "London Whale"

Closey 9y ago
Although it's a nice thought, the benefit of excel is it's comparatively low barrier-to-entry, ubiquity and transparency (in terms of other people being able to understand how a calculation was derived). It's not realistic to expect everyone in a company to learn python, and I'm not convinced that replacing shitty excel documents with shitty code would introduce less errors. Also the concept of 'minimum viable product' in excel is typically adding a couple of columns and adding titles to them. To develop something for others to use in python will take much longer.
stefco_ 9y ago
I've read a lot of crappy code written by physicists (my past self included) who lack training and/or don't care about code quality. While I hate proprietary, monolithic programs, I'm not sure replacing them with R would lead to saner results or fewer errors. I would certainly prefer python and org mode to excel and word, thought.
dwighttk 9y ago
I would be astonished if switching from Excel to Python or R or something else yielded even a 12% (much less greater than that) error free rate.
ubernostrum 9y ago
Excel is programming. It's just not the kind you do or like. The number of programming things people have done in Excel and Access is astounding, as is the number of people who've learned to program without realizing it as a result of using those tools. Could they be better? Sure. But don't knock it as not "programming" on that basis -- PHP is also bad.
- rrix2 9y ago
  Even more: Excel is purely functional programming for the vast majority of functions that people use in Excel.
eropple 9y ago
> People over use Excel to no end and it causes problems. They need to use programming. I'm sorry that the democratization of computing hurts you so, but Excel has done more for normal people who just need to push numbers around than perhaps any device since the pocket calculator. And it has exposed more people to functional programming than anything else has, ever.

Closey 9y ago

Although it's a nice thought, the benefit of excel is it's comparatively low barrier-to-entry, ubiquity and transparency (in terms of other people being able to understand how a calculation was derived). It's not realistic to expect everyone in a company to learn python, and I'm not convinced that replacing shitty excel documents with shitty code would introduce less errors. Also the concept of 'minimum viable product' in excel is typically adding a couple of columns and adding titles to them. To develop something for others to use in python will take much longer.

stefco_ 9y ago

I've read a lot of crappy code written by physicists (my past self included) who lack training and/or don't care about code quality. While I hate proprietary, monolithic programs, I'm not sure replacing them with R would lead to saner results or fewer errors. I would certainly prefer python and org mode to excel and word, thought.

dwighttk 9y ago

I would be astonished if switching from Excel to Python or R or something else yielded even a 12% (much less greater than that) error free rate.

ubernostrum 9y ago

Excel is programming. It's just not the kind you do or like. The number of programming things people have done in Excel and Access is astounding, as is the number of people who've learned to program without realizing it as a result of using those tools. Could they be better? Sure. But don't knock it as not "programming" on that basis -- PHP is also bad.

rrix2 9y ago
Even more: Excel is purely functional programming for the vast majority of functions that people use in Excel.

eropple 9y ago

> People over use Excel to no end and it causes problems. They need to use programming. I'm sorry that the democratization of computing hurts you so, but Excel has done more for normal people who just need to push numbers around than perhaps any device since the pocket calculator. And it has exposed more people to functional programming than anything else has, ever.