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I also think Excel is great; but not because it's Excel or heavens forbid, because it's a Microsoft product, but because it's a spreadsheet. The ability to thr

by Elrac 8y ago

I also think Excel is great; but not because it's Excel or heavens forbid, because it's a Microsoft product, but because it's a spreadsheet. The ability to throw data in a grid and massage it with operations the average human can understand - that's invaluable. Certainly, Excel is powerful and feature-filled. But 95% or more of what I do in Excel I can also do in Google Sheets or Libre Calc or whatever.

Mikeb85 8y ago
This. All of what I'd ever want to do to a spreadsheet Google Sheets can do, and whatever the 'power' Excel user thinks is a good idea to use Excel for I can do far more easily in R.
- ci5er 8y ago
  You can. G'donya. If you print a report on the result - you're done. Bottoms up, mate. If you are collaborating - the issue isn't tools that you and I might know that may or may not be better than Excel (like R), it's that we've got to share our work with people who may or may not know those tools. I believe (personally) that Excel almost singularly is a tool that both the adept and novice can use together. And, you know, if you want to spin your twirly six shooter, you can always do a monte carlo simulation in C, print out the results as CSV and import it into Excel for the (I'm sure you would call them) more benighted amongst your co-workers.
  - rectang 8y ago
    > we've got to share our work with people who may or may not know those tools We can acknowledge the power of network effects while at the same time critiquing design. They both have utility, but they are entirely separate.
  - Mikeb85 8y ago
    Except times are changing, and maybe we won't see it until baby boomers are all retired, but a lot of younger people are far more adept at using technology and coding is becoming far more popular. In university, we had to learn Python and SQL in a CS for Business introduction course, R for stats, and while we did learn some Excel, for anything related to stats, econ or even finance we used other tools primarily. Just like MS woke up one day to the fact it no longer has a strangle hold on computing, the same will happen to Excel, but maybe in 10 years. There are better tools and the people who cling to Excel are on the way out.
    - jen729w 8y ago
      I said the same to myself as I looked over my shoulder at the millennials in ~2000. I was sure that the couple of glorious working years I’d had so far – glorious because of the rate I was getting compared to the work I had to do – would soon be over. It never happened. The millennials, as a whole, don’t sit in front of Python any more than my generation do (I’m 42). And if anything, the number that do is getting lower. At least I had a ZX Spectrum 48+ to hack around with when I was a kid. I had to code to load a game, even if it was just `10 LOAD`! Kids now just hit a button on their iPad.

by Elrac 8y ago

Mikeb85 8y ago

This. All of what I'd ever want to do to a spreadsheet Google Sheets can do, and whatever the 'power' Excel user thinks is a good idea to use Excel for I can do far more easily in R.

ci5er 8y ago
You can. G'donya. If you print a report on the result - you're done. Bottoms up, mate. If you are collaborating - the issue isn't tools that you and I might know that may or may not be better than Excel (like R), it's that we've got to share our work with people who may or may not know those tools. I believe (personally) that Excel almost singularly is a tool that both the adept and novice can use together. And, you know, if you want to spin your twirly six shooter, you can always do a monte carlo simulation in C, print out the results as CSV and import it into Excel for the (I'm sure you would call them) more benighted amongst your co-workers.
- rectang 8y ago
  > we've got to share our work with people who may or may not know those tools We can acknowledge the power of network effects while at the same time critiquing design. They both have utility, but they are entirely separate.
- Mikeb85 8y ago
  Except times are changing, and maybe we won't see it until baby boomers are all retired, but a lot of younger people are far more adept at using technology and coding is becoming far more popular. In university, we had to learn Python and SQL in a CS for Business introduction course, R for stats, and while we did learn some Excel, for anything related to stats, econ or even finance we used other tools primarily. Just like MS woke up one day to the fact it no longer has a strangle hold on computing, the same will happen to Excel, but maybe in 10 years. There are better tools and the people who cling to Excel are on the way out.
  - jen729w 8y ago
    I said the same to myself as I looked over my shoulder at the millennials in ~2000. I was sure that the couple of glorious working years I’d had so far – glorious because of the rate I was getting compared to the work I had to do – would soon be over. It never happened. The millennials, as a whole, don’t sit in front of Python any more than my generation do (I’m 42). And if anything, the number that do is getting lower. At least I had a ZX Spectrum 48+ to hack around with when I was a kid. I had to code to load a game, even if it was just `10 LOAD`! Kids now just hit a button on their iPad.