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We have a saying in German: A bad worker always blames their tools. Excel has many quirks, but I'm still very grateful that it exists, for quickly putting toge

by v1ne 2y ago

We have a saying in German: A bad worker always blames their tools. Excel has many quirks, but I'm still very grateful that it exists, for quickly putting together some numbers and still being able to change the inputs to my formulas.

AStonesThrow 2y ago
That's interesting. In English, the idiom is: "It's a poor artist who blames his tools."
- thebytefairy 2y ago
  As a native English speaker, I've actually only heard 'a bad workman blames his tools', not the artist form. Now that I google it, did you mean craftsman? I don't see any references to artist.
hennell 2y ago
A poor worker blames their tools, but no-one can write the Bible on a stamp with a carrot...
augustk 2y ago
I think what you mean here is that you are grateful that spreadsheet applications exist. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet
asjir 2y ago
In Polish we have: a bad ballerina is hindered by the hem of her skirt
jyunwai 2y ago
But at the same time, there is a saying in user experience design: don't blame the user. At least at the time of the article, there was no way to disable the auto-conversion of certain strings (like "SEPT2") into dates. A setting to disable this would have stopped many errors amplified by researchers working late at night or rushing to meet a deadline. It's true that there has to be some point where the users of the tool need to put in the effort to learn how to best use it. But effort poured in from the other end by the developers, too, can go a long way to prevent common errors and save users time.
wruza 2y ago
Again, this saying has a nuance people often miss. You don’t blame your tools. Not all tools. Not tools forced upon by some archaic industrial standard or habit. Not stupid tools you’d never use otherwise but have no choice. Excel has many quirks, but I'm still very grateful that it exists, for quickly putting together some numbers and still being able to change the inputs to my formulas. That’s nice, but Excel didn’t invent spreadsheets. It invented adding BS to them and if it didn’t exist, you’d still have WhateverCalc successor available at the moment.
user90131313 2y ago
[flagged]
someotherperson 2y ago
In Arabic, “the one who can’t dance says the floor is crooked”
XlA5vEKsMISoIln 2y ago
A bad dancer finds even his ballsack annoying.

by v1ne 2y ago

AStonesThrow 2y ago

That's interesting. In English, the idiom is: "It's a poor artist who blames his tools."

thebytefairy 2y ago
As a native English speaker, I've actually only heard 'a bad workman blames his tools', not the artist form. Now that I google it, did you mean craftsman? I don't see any references to artist.

hennell 2y ago

A poor worker blames their tools, but no-one can write the Bible on a stamp with a carrot...

augustk 2y ago

I think what you mean here is that you are grateful that spreadsheet applications exist. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet

asjir 2y ago

In Polish we have: a bad ballerina is hindered by the hem of her skirt

jyunwai 2y ago

But at the same time, there is a saying in user experience design: don't blame the user. At least at the time of the article, there was no way to disable the auto-conversion of certain strings (like "SEPT2") into dates. A setting to disable this would have stopped many errors amplified by researchers working late at night or rushing to meet a deadline. It's true that there has to be some point where the users of the tool need to put in the effort to learn how to best use it. But effort poured in from the other end by the developers, too, can go a long way to prevent common errors and save users time.

wruza 2y ago

Again, this saying has a nuance people often miss. You don’t blame your tools. Not all tools. Not tools forced upon by some archaic industrial standard or habit. Not stupid tools you’d never use otherwise but have no choice. Excel has many quirks, but I'm still very grateful that it exists, for quickly putting together some numbers and still being able to change the inputs to my formulas. That’s nice, but Excel didn’t invent spreadsheets. It invented adding BS to them and if it didn’t exist, you’d still have WhateverCalc successor available at the moment.

user90131313 2y ago

[flagged]

someotherperson 2y ago

In Arabic, “the one who can’t dance says the floor is crooked”

XlA5vEKsMISoIln 2y ago

A bad dancer finds even his ballsack annoying.