20 ms·

It blows my mind that the behavior in spreadsheet software is not what I would expect: * NEVER modify the text I type into a cell. * Parse, interpret, format

It blows my mind that the behavior in spreadsheet software is not what I would expect: * NEVER modify the text I type into a cell. * Parse, interpret, format the cell according to the "data type" that's detected or chosen by the user * In the grid, display the data according to the interpretation above * In the formula textbox, show me exactly what I typed in, unmodified.

FabHK 3y ago
As it is, Excel needs to keep around a) the value of a cell, b) its format (ignoring formulae, comments, etc.). In your proposal, Excel would need to keep around a) the value of a cell, b) its format, and c) whatever you originally typed in, with c) being potentially more than a)+b), without very much benefit. And remember, Excel was released in 1987 (years before Windows 3.1) on machines that had less storage than they have today. I'd say the design decision made back then was the right one.
- altruios 3y ago
  36 years is a long time to make these headaches go away...
- kahirsch 3y ago
  It's not 1987 any more and Excel doesn't use the file format that it used back then. The price of main memory and long-term storage has declined by many orders of magnitude since 1987.
  - FabHK 3y ago
    Well, yes, obviously, but do you realise what a headache it is (would be) if the default behaviour of Excel changes? How many people would complain if things that used to work suddenly stop working with a new version?
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
      The problem was that this default behavior was unchangable. Like, let me get into settings and turn this shit off (like they are now doing), they could have done this decades ago.
- aqfamnzc 3y ago
  The value of the cell is what I typed in. How that is displayed is determined at render time or whatever, based on the data type. This is already kind of the case. If you change the date rendering format, the "real" date text in the cell stays the same. The only issue is that Excel decides what an acceptable "real" value is and modifies my input to match that.
yonatan8070 3y ago
We keep a log of PCs that come in for repair at work, it's not mission critical and excel does the job well enough One extremely aggrevating thing it does repeatedly is strip leading 0s off phone numbers (local phone numbers here follow thw format 0XX-XXX-XXXX), we constanly need to work around it by remembering to add a dash in the middle.
- wharfjumper 3y ago
  Prefix with ' or format the column as Text
mafuy 3y ago
This is of course correct, but there are also people who do not understand formatting. They get confused when they want to edit the displayed value and find the typed value to be different from it.

FabHK 3y ago

As it is, Excel needs to keep around a) the value of a cell, b) its format (ignoring formulae, comments, etc.). In your proposal, Excel would need to keep around a) the value of a cell, b) its format, and c) whatever you originally typed in, with c) being potentially more than a)+b), without very much benefit. And remember, Excel was released in 1987 (years before Windows 3.1) on machines that had less storage than they have today. I'd say the design decision made back then was the right one.

altruios 3y ago
36 years is a long time to make these headaches go away...
kahirsch 3y ago
It's not 1987 any more and Excel doesn't use the file format that it used back then. The price of main memory and long-term storage has declined by many orders of magnitude since 1987.
- FabHK 3y ago
  Well, yes, obviously, but do you realise what a headache it is (would be) if the default behaviour of Excel changes? How many people would complain if things that used to work suddenly stop working with a new version?
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    The problem was that this default behavior was unchangable. Like, let me get into settings and turn this shit off (like they are now doing), they could have done this decades ago.
aqfamnzc 3y ago
The value of the cell is what I typed in. How that is displayed is determined at render time or whatever, based on the data type. This is already kind of the case. If you change the date rendering format, the "real" date text in the cell stays the same. The only issue is that Excel decides what an acceptable "real" value is and modifies my input to match that.

yonatan8070 3y ago

We keep a log of PCs that come in for repair at work, it's not mission critical and excel does the job well enough One extremely aggrevating thing it does repeatedly is strip leading 0s off phone numbers (local phone numbers here follow thw format 0XX-XXX-XXXX), we constanly need to work around it by remembering to add a dash in the middle.

wharfjumper 3y ago
Prefix with ' or format the column as Text

mafuy 3y ago

This is of course correct, but there are also people who do not understand formatting. They get confused when they want to edit the displayed value and find the typed value to be different from it.