> For built in functions yes Excel is better. As soon as you start venturing outside of Spreadsheets and into data analysis (where Macro's come into play) stop

> For built in functions yes Excel is better. As soon as you start venturing outside of Spreadsheets and into data analysis (where Macro's come into play) stop using Excel. I see Excel users in 2 camps: Those that don't know what functions are, and if the do, tread carefully with '=if(...,...)' and get intrigued. Though those that get intrigued are in a minority. Those that know what functions are have Excel act as a full-fledged IDE, which it does pretty well. This second camp either write libraries to call from Excel, or have someone write them in C++ if the libraries are that important. Excel is exceedingly good for hacking, or I should say, playing. It is not a spreadsheet, it is an extension of skin from keyboard to screen for visualizing data, from brain to 2D hackable multi-dimensional grid, that is as easy as playdough.