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Telling everyone to learn Python to solve all of their problems is not a legitimate or realistic suggestion or solution.

• Spivak 1y ago
  Why? We expect huge swaths of non-programmers to learn R to work with data. Seems like it just depends on the field. If Excel was an integrated Python environment (or VBA or whatever pick your language) then I bet users would have learned it all the same. Twenty years later I bet HN would be full of complaints about how people have a hard time transitioning to "real" Python because they learned the Excel flavor.
  • moregrist 1y ago
    > We expect huge swaths of non-programmers to learn R to work with data. I’ve worked in academics and industry around biologists, chemists, physicists, statisticians, bioinformaticians, and all varieties of engineers. I’ve never seen “huge swaths” of anyone expected to learn R for anything outside of a few niche areas in statistics and bioinformatics. What people are expected to know is how to use a spreadsheet. What people are often given is Microsoft Excel, and essentially nothing else. A lot of companies wouldn’t dream of letting random employees install or use R or Python. It’s not ideal. But some battles can’t be won and aren’t worth fighting. Which is why people use Excel for so many things.
  • pjmlp 1y ago
    Do we? I never seen R being used, when Excel doesn't work out, it is something like Tableau instead.