Excel would be fine if people didn't keep creating spreadsheets with it.
The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
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Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#52Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#53I suck at excel, but confession: i know how to make Installer programs and I don't tell anyone anything about them, EVER. I learned how to make MSIs packages and NSIS installers about 15 years ago and it didn't stop until I completely redacted the info and experience and changed jobs.
Know your pain, I know how to use grep/awk/sed/..., now I am "logs investigation" expert too often, ugh..
Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#54I'm "the excel guy" for a lab of about 100 people, and it is indeed a challenge sometimes. Mostly I just yell at them and tell them to stop using excel sheets as makeshift databases. Then I yell at them some more and make them switch from formulas (which, being written in reverse Polish, are terrible to debug) over to macros. Then I yell at them for recording macros instead of writing them themselves. Then I just do…
There needs to be an Excel "pro mode" where the mouse is disabled and you have to do all navigation by keyboard. People would become so much more efficient that way.
If "pro mode" is optional, it would be no more effective than the existing "pro mode" of simply taking your hand off the mouse.
Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#55I've always wondered: these clunky Excel sheets are used at billion-dollar companies. Why don't they invest in building a sane web application (or similar) that can do all the validation and calculations in a much better looking interface that is suited for the job / application?
Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? I took a stab at R about a year ago and found it utterly confusing.
I think the point is that formulas and macros are more utterly confusing.
Yeah, at least the R code only goes up and down, line by line. Most non-trivial excel code will have different bits of code going right and left (formulas sit in a row,column pair). One you get into extra tabs/sheets that's yet another dimension.
Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#57I'm "the excel guy" for a lab of about 100 people, and it is indeed a challenge sometimes. Mostly I just yell at them and tell them to stop using excel sheets as makeshift databases. Then I yell at them some more and make them switch from formulas (which, being written in reverse Polish, are terrible to debug) over to macros. Then I yell at them for recording macros instead of writing them themselves. Then I just do…
Does it get in the way of your real job? Or is that your real job?
edit: by real, I mean the main duty of your job / what you were hired for. No implication meant haha
Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Explaining it to the same person for the 15th time though...
As a career educator, and ruling out learning disabilities that are not appropriately accommodated, I believe that generally means you're not doing a good job of explaining in a way the other person is capable of grasping. Blame goes both ways. And the original point still stands. It is productive to teach someone to improve their own processes.
One difference between your experiences as an educator and the parent's experiences as an Office Excel Guy is that educators have a position of authority, and there is generally an ethos of paying attention and trying to remember what they're telling you!
Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#59Having used Excel for many years on the trading floor, I have to say it's awful. It does everything, badly. Which is why it's popular. People can get by without properly thinking things through, just jamming a few formulas on a spreadsheet, and patching the calculation when something comes up. You're never forced to think rigorously. You can use it as a crappy database. Or a crappy UI. Or a crappy place to call exter…
> It does everything, badly.
Yes, it does do everything[0] badly.
Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It
#60I do not understand the mindset of not wanting to help other people. Enabling people to learn more about the software they use every day is better for everyone involved. Yes, some problems are too complex to solve in a few minutes, but pointing someone in the right direction requires little to no effort. Excel lacks the community programmers have and also lacks the learning opportunities given by open-source software…
Then you clearly dont have a lot of help parasites.
What do I mean by help parasite?
Asks you to do the work for them, instead of asking for help solving the problem. Asks for the same answer to the same problem over and over again to the point where any person would have pattern recognition. Uses imprecise language even after being provided it to diagnose and troubleshoot an issue.
While there's plenty of people who are well meaning and want to learn, being the "thing" guy is not that - its a slow death to the choking off of your job description by others using your time and resources to do their jobs.