4 ms·
Did the researchers license Excel for genetic work? This seems like a major error to treat your gene data as dates.
by windows_tips 8y ago
Did the researchers license Excel for genetic work? This seems like a major error to treat your gene data as dates.
- SiVal 8y agoExcel doesn't treat gene data as dates, it treats text input in certain formats as dates unless you tell it not to by explicitly specifying the data type. Scientists have a whole constellation of tools to choose from--various spreadsheets, Jupyter notebooks, R programs, custom apps written by colleagues, etc.--and each one will have a certain feature set that will have to be used properly to avoid errors. Excel is not "buggy" in this respect. I will say, though, that I have been repeatedly surprised when creating large, complex models for others in Excel at how easy it is to have a bug in your "code" that isn't obvious. In this respect, it's a bit like JavaScript's philosophy of "don't crash or sound an alarm, just make your best guess and keep going." For simple things, this works fine, but for anything complex, I really prefer more "bondage and discipline" from the platform, so my potential errors are pointed out rather than forgiven.
- windows_tips 8y agoI didn't expect Excel to understand gene data. I expected that scientists would have used an appropriate tool for gene data. >complex models for others in Excel It's best not to do that except in cases of emergency, I think. If you are going to get complex, SQL may be a much better solution, or something else.