3 ms·
> The researchers, who published their analysis in Genome Biology, say the issue can be fixed by formatting Excel columns as text and remaining vigilant—or swit
by hk__2 8y ago
> The researchers, who published their analysis in Genome Biology, say the issue can be fixed by formatting Excel columns as text and remaining vigilant—or switching to Google Sheets, where gene names are stored exactly as they’re entered
I doubt that. I fight with Google Sheets every day because it thinks some of my text values are dates.
- nerdponx 8y agoI wonder if the world couls benefit from a SQLite-backed spreadsheet program. All the data type BS would be basically solved.
- the-dude 8y agoThere has been an amazing project like this on HN this year. I will do a quick search to see if I can find it. edit: not so easy, but here it is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16772276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16772276 https://www.querystorm.com/ https://www.querystorm.com/
- meritt 8y agoThe fundamental issue I have with tools like this is they all require plugins, which makes sharing these spreadsheets outside of your organization nearly impossible. I'd love to find a plugin that let's me do all this awesome stuff and then export a copy of the spreadsheet with static data and no dependencies/plugins/macros. Does that exist?
- nerdponx 8y agoI'd be surprised if you couldn't export the output from that as CSV or "plain" XLSX.
- meritt 8y agoCSV would also defeat the entire point as the goal is the presentation and familiarity of Excel. But if it's possible to export to a plain XLSX (looks and functions identically but all the data values are hardcoded) that'd be great.
- detaro 8y agoThe "backing" isn't the problem, it's the interface to it.
- ajross 8y agoYes, imposing a schema on arbitrary spreadsheet data absolutely fixes typing errors like this. It also produces a tool that has the semantics of a formal database and not a "spreadsheet", so none of the biologists in question are going to use it, being biologists and not programmers. We can't fix this with tools. Like the article said, proper scientific rigor is really the only solution. In some fields (e.g. physics), computation is so fundamental to the research that practitioners are basically computer scientists. We aren't there yet in genetics, nor do we really want to be.
- antidesitter 8y ago> Like the article said, proper scientific rigor is really the only solution. In some fields (e.g. physics), computation is so fundamental to the research that practitioners are basically computer scientists. We aren't there yet in genetics, nor do we really want to be. Why not?
- cosmojg 8y ago> We aren't there yet in genetics, nor do we really want to be. Why not? Interdisciplinary, quantitative biology is the future of biology, and computers make this kind of work so much easier for the same reason that they make the work of physicists easier. More and more, it seems my colleagues without at least rudimentary programming skills are being left in the dust.
- repolfx 8y agoI don't know if the world should give up on making something better than a spreadsheet but easier to use than a full blown database. It's not clear to me at all that spreadsheets have to work exactly as they do today. More type-safety would definitely be an upgrade.
- sincerely 8y agoIn all fairness, Excel is also notorious for being overaggresive when it comes to deciding whether a given cell should be converted to a date.