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I use Excel in my data processing workflow. I'll grab a small subset of the data to play around with in excel to see what it is I actually need out of it. Then,

by moftz 6y ago

I use Excel in my data processing workflow. I'll grab a small subset of the data to play around with in excel to see what it is I actually need out of it. Then, I'll do all of the real processing in python along with matplotlib for any charts I need to produce. Excel could almost entirely handle my use cases but there is usually some bit manipulation I need to do because my data is usually telemetry encoded as ASCII. Also making if-else statement in Excel is exhausting. I could also just use MATLAB but I'm more used to using python.

slaymaker1907 6y ago
Excel is exceptionally good at telling you what the shape of your data is. I love being able to just turn something into a table and then see the distinct values as a filter. Sure, SQL and most environments can tell you distinct values of a column and their counts, but they are much slower and more cumbersome to explore with. I often start out with broad filters then go through many more specific ones depending on what I see from the first filter.
- LaszloKv 6y ago
  Another great tool for data exploration is visidata! This is a good example of what it can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CBDTgGtOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CBDTgGtOU
  - sam_bristow 6y ago
    Visidata is great. My main problem is that I use it so infrequently so it's hard to build up the muscle memory to use it really effectively.
- waheoo 6y ago
  Isn't all excel data tabular in shape?
DavidPeiffer 6y ago
>Also making if-else statement in Excel is exhausting. About a year ago Excel added =SWITCH, which is effectively {Logic Test | Output} pairings executed until one is true. Many if/then/else nestings could be eliminated with it.
rakoo 6y ago
It looks to me datasette (https://datasette.io/ https://datasette.io/) could fill the same need: load the data into SQLite and explore it with a host of tools and visualisations, all profiting from the power of SQL

by moftz 6y ago

slaymaker1907 6y ago

Excel is exceptionally good at telling you what the shape of your data is. I love being able to just turn something into a table and then see the distinct values as a filter. Sure, SQL and most environments can tell you distinct values of a column and their counts, but they are much slower and more cumbersome to explore with. I often start out with broad filters then go through many more specific ones depending on what I see from the first filter.

LaszloKv 6y ago
Another great tool for data exploration is visidata! This is a good example of what it can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CBDTgGtOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CBDTgGtOU
- sam_bristow 6y ago
  Visidata is great. My main problem is that I use it so infrequently so it's hard to build up the muscle memory to use it really effectively.
waheoo 6y ago
Isn't all excel data tabular in shape?

DavidPeiffer 6y ago

>Also making if-else statement in Excel is exhausting. About a year ago Excel added =SWITCH, which is effectively {Logic Test | Output} pairings executed until one is true. Many if/then/else nestings could be eliminated with it.

rakoo 6y ago

It looks to me datasette (https://datasette.io/ https://datasette.io/) could fill the same need: load the data into SQLite and explore it with a host of tools and visualisations, all profiting from the power of SQL