4 ms·

An opt-out doesn't solve the problem, because one person in the chain of custody if an excel file who hasn't opted out would be enough to destroy the data.

acdha 3y ago
Only if the option was implemented as a user preference which isn’t stored in the file. The right way to do this would be to add the flag as a file header, and give people a UI control to set it by default. That way you’d always see spreadsheets as the person who gave it to you did, and you would create new ones with your preferred behavior.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Channeling my inner QA person, this breaks in many subtle and not so subtle ways: - people love to export as CSV. And I kinda understand them, csv looks simple enough, what could go wrong ? - other spreadsheet softs need to recognize the same field and act the same way. Google Sheets, LibreOffice, KingSoft's one etc. Not counting old office versions that aren't updated anymore, because the owner doesn't want to move into the cloud. - the flag needs to stay when moving sheets around, copy to another set, etc. That could still be better than nothing. But could still lead to catastrophic loses as people get used to it working most of the time, there's no perfect solution.
  - acdha 3y ago
    It might be easier to think about as the difference between perfection and practical improvements. Right now 100% of Excel users are at risk of silent data corruption. The proposed change would allow people to reliably prevent this category of corruption for all of the documents they create and over time that’d become a majority in their field. This would also offer the path for changing the default over time to safe by default. There will be more spreadsheets created in the future than exist now.
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      > Right now 100% of Excel users are at risk of silent data corruption. They already added an option in the settings last year to deal with this specific issue. Their solution isn't perfect either, they made the tradeoff to optimize for up to date excel users.
- cedilla 3y ago
  Still the same problems. Unless you exclude people with older excel versions they can still ruin the file. And if the first person in the chain didn't make the change, who would even notice it? So we're back at requiring extreme vigilance without any assurance. Also keep in mind that the first person doesn't necessarily use excel at all. The file might start and end as a text file or TSV.
- Amezarak 3y ago
  I don't understand what's wrong with the existing solution of: Right Click > Format Cells > Text. Set the data type of the column and Excel will not fiddle with it. Let it stay implicit and Excel will to guess. This change is saved in the file. The article only slightly touches on this: converting to CSV and losing all the Excel formatting and then opening it in Excel again.
  - acdha 3y ago
    The problem with that is that you have to remember to do it before Excel loses data.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    Excel doesn't support CSV so expecting that to work is like expecting your car to fly. Just because they have something they call CSV import or export doesn't mean the feature actually works.

acdha 3y ago

Only if the option was implemented as a user preference which isn’t stored in the file. The right way to do this would be to add the flag as a file header, and give people a UI control to set it by default. That way you’d always see spreadsheets as the person who gave it to you did, and you would create new ones with your preferred behavior.

makeitdouble 3y ago
Channeling my inner QA person, this breaks in many subtle and not so subtle ways: - people love to export as CSV. And I kinda understand them, csv looks simple enough, what could go wrong ? - other spreadsheet softs need to recognize the same field and act the same way. Google Sheets, LibreOffice, KingSoft's one etc. Not counting old office versions that aren't updated anymore, because the owner doesn't want to move into the cloud. - the flag needs to stay when moving sheets around, copy to another set, etc. That could still be better than nothing. But could still lead to catastrophic loses as people get used to it working most of the time, there's no perfect solution.
- acdha 3y ago
  It might be easier to think about as the difference between perfection and practical improvements. Right now 100% of Excel users are at risk of silent data corruption. The proposed change would allow people to reliably prevent this category of corruption for all of the documents they create and over time that’d become a majority in their field. This would also offer the path for changing the default over time to safe by default. There will be more spreadsheets created in the future than exist now.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    > Right now 100% of Excel users are at risk of silent data corruption. They already added an option in the settings last year to deal with this specific issue. Their solution isn't perfect either, they made the tradeoff to optimize for up to date excel users.
cedilla 3y ago
Still the same problems. Unless you exclude people with older excel versions they can still ruin the file. And if the first person in the chain didn't make the change, who would even notice it? So we're back at requiring extreme vigilance without any assurance. Also keep in mind that the first person doesn't necessarily use excel at all. The file might start and end as a text file or TSV.
Amezarak 3y ago
I don't understand what's wrong with the existing solution of: Right Click > Format Cells > Text. Set the data type of the column and Excel will not fiddle with it. Let it stay implicit and Excel will to guess. This change is saved in the file. The article only slightly touches on this: converting to CSV and losing all the Excel formatting and then opening it in Excel again.
- acdha 3y ago
  The problem with that is that you have to remember to do it before Excel loses data.
- imtringued 3y ago
  Excel doesn't support CSV so expecting that to work is like expecting your car to fly. Just because they have something they call CSV import or export doesn't mean the feature actually works.