The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It • Hacker News Board

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#261

Post by lewisinc » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 1:49 AM UTC

riazrizvi wrote: post #161

lozaning wrote: post #129

If we're sharing awesome excel videos, You Suck at Excel with Joel Spolsky has to be among the best I've ever seen. Joel, being on the team that made excel, has an incredible amount of excel knowledge. The video is meant to be in the same vein as the You Suck at Photoshop videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c

sweats, "what don't I know?", watches hour long video (v. quickly), wipes brow "phew - it's just basic" .

You mean we had access to Basic in Excel for all this time? I'm really behind the curve!

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#262

Post by Insanity » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 1:51 AM UTC

dmos62 wrote: post #184

zaphar wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure which is worse. Being that awk/sed guy or being that Git guy.

Who uses "guys" anymore? Didn't stackoverflow replace that?

I find that a surprising amount of people actually don't use SO where I work for anything beyond simple things.

It's usually faster (and safer) to ask a 'local expert' first.

Does depend on the situation, I work in a large-ish team where people have specialized in different technologies. So if I encounter something I'm unfamiliar with, asking someone locally is better than spending time finding a solution on Stackoverflow that might not be what I want.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#263

Post by 1000units » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 1:54 AM UTC

busyant wrote: post #259

1000units wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not heartless, but he is very often slandered and misunderstood.

> very often slandered and misunderstood. You mean the guy who wrote this? Clearly, he's a diamond in the rough /s. 'Then a letter from Mr. Shkreli came to his home, addressed to his wife. “Your husband has stolen $1.6 million from me,” it read. “Your pathetic excuse of a husband,” the letter added, “needs to get a real job that does not depend on fraud to succeed.” “I hope to see you and your four children homeless,…

Yes. I've said worse to people over much less myself. And I'm a nice guy too.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#264

Post by zhte415 » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

pq0ak2nnd wrote: post #219

tomnipotent wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4. Someone who knows the limit is 10 sheets and 20MB Excel can now deal with many gigs of data thanks to PowerPivot and the addition of an in-memory database.

FTFY: "Excel THINKS IT CAN DEAL with many gigs of data thanks to PowerPivot and the addition of an in-memory database." It's so cute when I hit ctrl-downarrow on a blank sheet and Excel sends me to row 1,048,576. Wishful thinking because if I ever filled 1M cells with functions, well... lololololol... time to use JMP...

I still deal with people that are limited to 65535 rows.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#265

Post by awl130 » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 2:04 AM UTC

I'm an expert at Excel but I switched to Google Sheets years ago and haven't looked back. Version control is probably the biggest improvement; but also ability to insert SQL queries, `arrayformula`, the list goes on.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#266

Post by awl130 » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 2:07 AM UTC

jediazse wrote: post #249

DailyHN wrote: post #163

Google Sheets > Excel

In what universe?

uh version control (have u tried the version history?); live updates, arrayformula, importrange, the list goes on and keeps getting longer

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#267

Post by natalyarostova » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 2:10 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #250

JetSpiegel wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the point of insurance companies was that the customers wouldn't pay the full cost.

So, there is such a thing as a free lunch?

The funny thing is you're being glib, but Markowitz literally is quoted as saying diversification is the closest thing there is in finance to a free lunch.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#268

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 2:17 AM UTC

css wrote: post #5

I 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…

[deleted]

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#269

Post by kamaal » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

OskarS wrote: post #86

You know who's awesome at Excel? Martin Shkreli. You know, the Wall Street asshole who's in jail now? A while back, someone told me "hey, dude, there are these videos on YouTube where Martin Shkreli uses Excel, and they're fucking magic. It's like the first time you watched someone who's really good at Vim. " It's true: [0]. Say what you will about that little heartless douchebag, he's fucking awesome at using Excel.…

>>You know, the Wall Street ... who's in jail now?

He is a seriously misunderstood figure. Have watched his YouTube videos too, not just the investment class but also his working sessions. Sure his excel skills are legendary.

But I learned a lot from him about skills, learning and mastery. Merely watching him work not only motivated me. But gave me tremendous perspective on time, its utility to life and how skills and knowledge need to work in general.

This guy has legendary skills in investing world. But apart from that he was always reading a book or two. He was doing organic chemistry, chess, playing guitar, learning programming and interests in wide variety of topics in economics.

He was first genuine example of 10k hour practice I have watched live in practice.

You also get to look into the mind of this guy, and see what's at the core of it, and you see most is basically 'knowledge and practice'.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#270

Post by geowwy » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

1000units wrote: post #244

OskarS wrote: post #86

You know who's awesome at Excel? Martin Shkreli. You know, the Wall Street asshole who's in jail now? A while back, someone told me "hey, dude, there are these videos on YouTube where Martin Shkreli uses Excel, and they're fucking magic. It's like the first time you watched someone who's really good at Vim. " It's true: [0]. Say what you will about that little heartless douchebag, he's fucking awesome at using Excel.…

He's not heartless, but he is very often slandered and misunderstood.

He was unfairly maligned about the medication thing. After that he decided to play troll but got arrogant and took it too far.