Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wha...... What?? What school or book did he read that made him think that was a good idea?
Could be worse. Could be a 641 line perl script.
Could be worse. Could be a one line Perl script.
Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
541–550 of 834 posts
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#542Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, not exactly like non-Excel systems are bulletproof either. Entire Japanese stock market went down last week, and it's not like there was a flood of people on HN bemoaning that. At least with Reinhart and Rogoff et al you have a responsible party. As opposed to 'nameless machine failed, and nameless backup machine also failed, and now it's in JIRA so don't worry about it'. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/busi…
Reminds me of this - https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/comments/fv7qi7/b...
That example is overblown as the system is supposed to be restarted more frequently than that for maintenance. A better example is cars have been frequently rebooting various internal computers while your driving for decades, that seems bad but it’s similarly irrelevant.
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#543All previous major spreadsheet screwups were costing money (largest being $6 billion in losses due to a excel formula mishap) , but this one is playing with lives :( 5 – London Olympics Oversells Swimming Event by 10,000 Tickets 4- Banking powerhouse Barclay’s accidentally bought 179 more contracts than they intended in their purchase of Lehman Brothers assets in 2008. Someone hid cells containing the unwanted contra…
Is it really that hard to spend 5 minutes setting up a decent database? Use sqlite if you really want something simple. I guess you still have to understand locking (especially on distributed filesystems.) I've certainly seen people mess that up with spreadsheets.
The problem is people can't do this in a office. Nobody has admin rights on there computers. Everybody know how yo use Excel. We all know, if you have to make a ticket to your office IT for such things, you mostly have to wait a long long time and it never, never works the first time. I guess that is one of the main reasons, why the world runs on Excel (and MS Access). It just works, it's just there, no dealing with IT.
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#544This will not be Excel, but a external export library.
I doubt the current Excel which MS spends billions on would not be opening data if the XLS is over the 'size' limit but a valid format.
I guess MS hate is easier than thinking about software and logic and being a better programmer and stuff.
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#545All previous major spreadsheet screwups were costing money (largest being $6 billion in losses due to a excel formula mishap) , but this one is playing with lives :( 5 – London Olympics Oversells Swimming Event by 10,000 Tickets 4- Banking powerhouse Barclay’s accidentally bought 179 more contracts than they intended in their purchase of Lehman Brothers assets in 2008. Someone hid cells containing the unwanted contra…
Is it really that hard to spend 5 minutes setting up a decent database? Use sqlite if you really want something simple. I guess you still have to understand locking (especially on distributed filesystems.) I've certainly seen people mess that up with spreadsheets.
Whenever you try to do something properly, some person in your organization condescendingly says "perfect is the enemy of the good".
And because Excel is "good" for a vast number of use-cases then people use it for everything.
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#546All previous major spreadsheet screwups were costing money (largest being $6 billion in losses due to a excel formula mishap) , but this one is playing with lives :( 5 – London Olympics Oversells Swimming Event by 10,000 Tickets 4- Banking powerhouse Barclay’s accidentally bought 179 more contracts than they intended in their purchase of Lehman Brothers assets in 2008. Someone hid cells containing the unwanted contra…
Well, not exactly like non-Excel systems are bulletproof either. Entire Japanese stock market went down last week, and it's not like there was a flood of people on HN bemoaning that. At least with Reinhart and Rogoff et al you have a responsible party. As opposed to 'nameless machine failed, and nameless backup machine also failed, and now it's in JIRA so don't worry about it'. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/busi…
I think similar to “code smells” in software engineering, using excel for critical data pipeline work can be considered a “data smell”. It’s not bad in and of itself, but it’s a signal that something may have gone seriously wrong with the data engineering process.
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#547Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it really that hard to spend 5 minutes setting up a decent database? Use sqlite if you really want something simple. I guess you still have to understand locking (especially on distributed filesystems.) I've certainly seen people mess that up with spreadsheets.
Whenever you try to do something properly, some person in your organization condescendingly says "perfect is the enemy of the good". And because Excel is "good" for a vast number of use-cases then people use it for everything.
Hey come now... we both need each other /s
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#548All previous major spreadsheet screwups were costing money (largest being $6 billion in losses due to a excel formula mishap) , but this one is playing with lives :( 5 – London Olympics Oversells Swimming Event by 10,000 Tickets 4- Banking powerhouse Barclay’s accidentally bought 179 more contracts than they intended in their purchase of Lehman Brothers assets in 2008. Someone hid cells containing the unwanted contra…
Is it really that hard to spend 5 minutes setting up a decent database? Use sqlite if you really want something simple. I guess you still have to understand locking (especially on distributed filesystems.) I've certainly seen people mess that up with spreadsheets.
Sure, I'll just teach tell my wife to learn SQL and some devops while she's at it. After that I'll coach her on how to get buy in from management on this new system while she neglects her primary duties.
Throwing up a database and integrating it into a workflow/system isn't something anyone can just get up and do. I have to imagein you know that.
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#549I hope people finally understand ( At least I hope Microsoft Understand ) Their biggest asset isn't actually Windows. But Excel.
Some on HN will definitely comes in with (x)Office Support MS Excel file as well etc.
There are trillion dollar worth of revenue relying on Excel. In the best case scenario, no one wants to work, rework, or even touch that Spreadsheet. Having 99% compatibility is not good enough.
Re: Missing Covid-19 test data was caused by the ill-thought-out use of Excel
#550Excel has its place. And it is excellent tool for some workflows. However, I have started to think that Microsoft should disable the option to save workbooks. That would kind of force people to use Excel as a numerical scratchpad with fast charting what is where Excel excels.
(There is some sarcasm in this comment, but not that much)