5 ms·

> Microsoft Excel may be fleeting, but human genes will be around for as long as we are. It’s best to give them names that work. This is the crux of the issue.

> Microsoft Excel may be fleeting, but human genes will be around for as long as we are. It’s best to give them names that work. This is the crux of the issue. Yes, Excel could do better with support for CSV. (OpenOffice and LibreOffice habdle this better, for example.) But no, genetics is not some niche use-case for this better support. It's just one example of many. I do analytics of another sort for a bank, and we run into this problem all the time with those pesky 16-digit account numbers. But, while Microsoft might do well to make changes to address their poor implementation, someone somewhere will implement the next best thing and screw it up, too.

nicoburns 5y ago
I really wish there was a better interchange format for tabular data. Criteria: - Plain text file - Supports formatting, cell types, etc - Does not support full spreadsheet features like formulas
- olau 5y ago
  UTF-8 CSV with a few HTML tags for formatting? You could call it CHU. Now you just need to make Excel accept it.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    I'd like it to have support for things like "this is a <format> cell", where format is something like text, numeric, date, currency. I'm not sure how you'd specify that in HTML.
    - ElectricalUnion 5y ago
      > text, numeric, date I think it's already defined? <input type="text">, <input type="number">, <input type="date"> > currency You probably need to use the microdata format https://schema.org/Offer https://schema.org/Offer
- mcv 5y ago
  I've been thinking about a project exactly to replace this sort of Excel misuse. The frontend should be about as Excel-like as possible, where you can just easily type (or import) as many rows and columns you like, but without the formulas and other real spreadsheet calculations. Instead, make it easy to add data types, validation for those types, foreign keys, etc, and store the whole thing in a database.
  - criddell 5y ago
    Sounds like MS Access.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Yeah, that's pretty similar to what I want. The other feature I'd love is the ability to add "Formatting rows" which are rich text and are marked as not being part of the data. They're merely decorative. I find such formatting is often considered essential for client-facing spreadsheets (somewhat understandably so they know what's going on), but it makes it quite messy to extract data from the sheet.
- cyxxon 5y ago
  I could even imagine some formula support, but only strongly typed, i.e. SUM only on numerical cells. For a small overview this would still be fine.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    I'd quite like these files to be openable in simple viewer/editor software that might not support formulas. I think once you support formulas you open pandora's box with regard to which formulas are supported.
- zokier 5y ago
  Parquet is not plain text (but that is an oxymoron anyways), but otherwise afaik it is pretty solid data interchange format supported by a number of tools already. It doesn't have native formatting system, but it does allow arbitrary key-value metadata on columns so surely something could be cooked up with that.

nicoburns 5y ago

I really wish there was a better interchange format for tabular data. Criteria: - Plain text file - Supports formatting, cell types, etc - Does not support full spreadsheet features like formulas

olau 5y ago
UTF-8 CSV with a few HTML tags for formatting? You could call it CHU. Now you just need to make Excel accept it.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  I'd like it to have support for things like "this is a <format> cell", where format is something like text, numeric, date, currency. I'm not sure how you'd specify that in HTML.
  - ElectricalUnion 5y ago
    > text, numeric, date I think it's already defined? <input type="text">, <input type="number">, <input type="date"> > currency You probably need to use the microdata format https://schema.org/Offer https://schema.org/Offer
mcv 5y ago
I've been thinking about a project exactly to replace this sort of Excel misuse. The frontend should be about as Excel-like as possible, where you can just easily type (or import) as many rows and columns you like, but without the formulas and other real spreadsheet calculations. Instead, make it easy to add data types, validation for those types, foreign keys, etc, and store the whole thing in a database.
- criddell 5y ago
  Sounds like MS Access.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Yeah, that's pretty similar to what I want. The other feature I'd love is the ability to add "Formatting rows" which are rich text and are marked as not being part of the data. They're merely decorative. I find such formatting is often considered essential for client-facing spreadsheets (somewhat understandably so they know what's going on), but it makes it quite messy to extract data from the sheet.
cyxxon 5y ago
I could even imagine some formula support, but only strongly typed, i.e. SUM only on numerical cells. For a small overview this would still be fine.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  I'd quite like these files to be openable in simple viewer/editor software that might not support formulas. I think once you support formulas you open pandora's box with regard to which formulas are supported.
zokier 5y ago
Parquet is not plain text (but that is an oxymoron anyways), but otherwise afaik it is pretty solid data interchange format supported by a number of tools already. It doesn't have native formatting system, but it does allow arbitrary key-value metadata on columns so surely something could be cooked up with that.