I agree 100% that Excel is best for people who aren't going to make the leap#. My point is that domain experts should* make the leap to "real" programming, espe

I agree 100% that Excel is best for people who aren't going to make the leap#. My point is that domain experts should* make the leap to "real" programming, especially R to handle data analysis. Excel is faster to get started. But for advanced tasks, the time it takes to learn Excel / R is about the same. A big reason why people don't make the leap is because they already spent too much time becoming an Excel expert. Indeed, for young analysts with no baggage, a lot of people learn and use R instead.