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You think Excel should make special accommodations because genetics authors misuse it? Excel has been acting this way since before bioinformatics existed. Auth

You think Excel should make special accommodations because genetics authors misuse it? Excel has been acting this way since before bioinformatics existed. Authors need to use their tools properly.

chucksmash 2y ago
Excel (and GSheets) are tools where I think a stripped down "trust my input, I know what I'm doing" mode that doesn't try to intuit user intent would be useful. As I type this comment and my phone miscorrects "intuit" to "Intuit," I think also Google keyboard could benefit from such a mode that only handles spelling mistakes but doesn't replace uncommon words with common brands, etc.
- tengwar2 2y ago
  But if you actually do know what you are doing, you know to set the cell type appropriately.
  - dehugger 2y ago
    Yes, of course. Every cell as type "Text" so it doesnt screw up everything I paste... The real problem is the behavior of the default "General" type, which actually means "guess at every value and ham up all my data." I frequently have to paste in strings which consist of 0 prefixed number ids. I know very well to make sure the column is text before pasting, but other users don't always remember and frequently get their data messed up by the behavior of "General", which assumes that what you wanted was an integer and thus "helpfully" strips all the prefixed 0s.
    - HenryBemis 2y ago
      I get all the points made (and the many more not included). The point is that Excel works great for 99% of the people and for 99% of the use-cases. I am a heavy excel user, for my financial planning, work, etc. And it pisses me off when I see a column that should be "networkdays" (working days) becoming $ or getting decimals, but hey, you take the bad with the good.
Prickle 2y ago
They already did in 2023. Excel did not have an option for turning automatic conversions off. You can now, FINALLY disable automatic conversion. Honestly that "feature" has been a bane of my existence, and I don't work with genes.
- macintux 2y ago
  I had no idea. Found https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/control-data-conversions-in-excel-for-windows-and-mac https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/control-data-con..., thanks. I’d love to know the percentage of corrupted data across all Excel workbooks.
- deleted 2y ago
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You think Excel should make special accommodations because genetics authors misuse it? Excel has been acting this way since before bioinformatics existed. Authors need to use their tools properly.

chucksmash 2y ago

Excel (and GSheets) are tools where I think a stripped down "trust my input, I know what I'm doing" mode that doesn't try to intuit user intent would be useful. As I type this comment and my phone miscorrects "intuit" to "Intuit," I think also Google keyboard could benefit from such a mode that only handles spelling mistakes but doesn't replace uncommon words with common brands, etc.

tengwar2 2y ago
But if you actually do know what you are doing, you know to set the cell type appropriately.
- dehugger 2y ago
  Yes, of course. Every cell as type "Text" so it doesnt screw up everything I paste... The real problem is the behavior of the default "General" type, which actually means "guess at every value and ham up all my data." I frequently have to paste in strings which consist of 0 prefixed number ids. I know very well to make sure the column is text before pasting, but other users don't always remember and frequently get their data messed up by the behavior of "General", which assumes that what you wanted was an integer and thus "helpfully" strips all the prefixed 0s.
  - HenryBemis 2y ago
    I get all the points made (and the many more not included). The point is that Excel works great for 99% of the people and for 99% of the use-cases. I am a heavy excel user, for my financial planning, work, etc. And it pisses me off when I see a column that should be "networkdays" (working days) becoming $ or getting decimals, but hey, you take the bad with the good.

Prickle 2y ago

They already did in 2023. Excel did not have an option for turning automatic conversions off. You can now, FINALLY disable automatic conversion. Honestly that "feature" has been a bane of my existence, and I don't work with genes.

macintux 2y ago
I had no idea. Found https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/control-data-conversions-in-excel-for-windows-and-mac https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/control-data-con..., thanks. I’d love to know the percentage of corrupted data across all Excel workbooks.
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