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There‘s whole books on numerical simulation with Excel. Which is absolutely incomprehensible - if you are math-wise enough to do simulations, you should be comp
by sveme 6y ago
There‘s whole books on numerical simulation with Excel. Which is absolutely incomprehensible - if you are math-wise enough to do simulations, you should be computer-wise enough to use a real programming language.
- lordnacho 6y agoI upvoted this. It's quite a lot more important than your elegant one-liner reveals. I think there's a gaping hole in many people's skills that need to be addressed. We're educating people in how certain models work, with lots of equations and diagrams, but we don't give most people access to the power of computation that would greatly help their studies.
- jbjbjbjb 6y agoI’ve done this type of numerical work in code and it’s much more difficult than it first appears. It’s not like web development this stuff is much more like real computer science. Tools like Excel and Matlab exist for a reason.
- dotancohen 6y agoMatlab, yes. Matlab code can be versioned, and opened in VIM for independent review. It can have unit and integration tests. It can also often be run in alternative implementations with few changes, such as Octave. Excel? You'd be lucky if Excel N-2 can properly handle the file, much less an "alternative implementation" such as LibreOffice Calc.
- jbjbjbjb 6y agoYou can have manual tests (automated through VBA if you wanted) and reviews. The review tools are lesser known features built into Excel. I know from my experience accounting firms will take your spreadsheets and code too and audit it. I’ve worked with bankers who would effectively run a suite of tests before using their updated spreadsheets. These concepts aren’t unique to programming.
- bosie 6y agoCurious as to how your claim follows?