4 ms·
I think this whole thread is too strongly biased to assuming that millions of analysts know what the ideal skills and tools for their job are, rather than they
by dm319 9y ago
I think this whole thread is too strongly biased to assuming that millions of analysts know what the ideal skills and tools for their job are, rather than they started with Excel and they continued with Excel.
The other thing is that people here are comparing moving from Excel to some sort of webapp/db or general purpose language, when actually they should be comparing to numerical computing tools.
R is a far more robust tool for numerical computing than Excel. It doesn't hide errors in formulas not copy-pasted enough, or references that have subtly shifted to an unrelated cell, or the garbage data from a sort that missed a few columns. The entry barrier is higher, but for the complex spreadsheets and models we're talking about, the investment in skills is similar.
- cleetus 9y agoAnd RStudio is an incredible IDE that can help ease that transition. My boss is an incredibly smart guy, but he worked in consulting for 15+ years and sometimes cannot view data from outside of an Excel perspective. It can be frustrating to have him think that every problem is a vlookup and pivot table from being solved. I think it's easy to become a bit myopic with Excel. It's like if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.
- dm319 9y agoYes, and after all, it's not as if learning R will prevent you trying out some models in Excel. In a life-time career, a 40-60 hour commitment for a new string to your bow that is as powerful as R is not a big investment.