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Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

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Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#61

Post by Godel_unicode »

SoftTalker wrote: post #58
phpisthebest wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, we have a expensive reporting tool, can too all kinds of things, query every type of database we have... Number one function used. Export to Excel, and normally it is on reports of basic table join queries, none of the advanced things it can do with the data

This is because businesspeople like to fiddle with formulas, graphs, and filters untill they isolate (i.e. cherry-pick) the subset of data that [makes them look good | supports their agendas]. They don't want canned reports. Excel makes this easy because they already know how to do those things in Excel.

People get really mad when you call this p-hacking, btw. I used to try and make this point to ”analysts” that I worked with, that science involves coming up with a hypothesis and then looking at the data. The response I got often enough that I’m sure it’s being taught somewhere was that you “need to let the data tell it’s own story”.

Turns out lots of people have decided what the conclusion is and are taking that conclusion and the data, and then blindly munging until they get a path which connects them.

Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#63

Post by spockz »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #13

Recently I started building Excel addons with custom formulas (e.g. =company.inventory(upc, WAREHOUSE), which call an api. This has blown the minds of non-tech folks among my clients. They equate this to magic. I was forced into doing this because after a year of digging to find out what reporting they wanted in the dashboard (“oh a thousand things… where’s the Excel spreadsheet export button?”), I gave up and now de…

Isn’t this exactly what Microsoft access was invented for? I’ve seen technical but non-cs people built magical things in forms by (or views). And when access got the ability to talk to MSSQL it really blew up. The quintessential low-code environment. I wonder why it never caught on.

Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#64

Post by Sharlin »

hermitcrab wrote: post #56
logicallee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(not OP) over on reddit people are saying it is fantastic for giving them excel formulas they ask for. I guess it means the formulas work!

That is one of the big issues with AIs like ChatGPT though. It gives you a plausible sounding answer, but that answer might be total BS. It doesn't tell you what degree of confidence it has in the answer. Maybe the formulas it gives are right 100%, 99% or 0% of the time.

Yes, and I think that in order for helper AIs like ChatGPT to really break through, people (especially in marketing) will have to learn to embrace confidence intervals, or at least some quantitative concept of confidence. The AI already knows how confident it is in its prediction, it's just a UI question. If plain numbers are too nerdy or Spock-y, at least tell me something like "I'm fairly sure" or "I'm not sure, but..."

Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#65

Post by axelf4 »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #61
SoftTalker wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because businesspeople like to fiddle with formulas, graphs, and filters untill they isolate (i.e. cherry-pick) the subset of data that [makes them look good | supports their agendas]. They don't want canned reports. Excel makes this easy because they already know how to do those things in Excel.

People get really mad when you call this p-hacking, btw. I used to try and make this point to ”analysts” that I worked with, that science involves coming up with a hypothesis and then looking at the data. The response I got often enough that I’m sure it’s being taught somewhere was that you “need to let the data tell it’s own story”. Turns out lots of people have decided what the conclusion is and are taking that con…

As my professor said: All good statistics is done before you have looked at the data.

Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#66

Post by SoftTalker »

logicallee wrote: post #54

For anyone who writes Excel formulas, it is one of the use cases for ChatGPT (a currently free chatbot that appears highly intelligent in some contexts) that users rave the most about. The next time you're writing an excel formula, give chatgpt a try. It might just get it right the first time.

Or it might get it wrong, but not obviously so. Who's job is it to debug/prove the ChatGPT-authored formulas that business people will certainly start using (if they haven't already). I have enough trouble debugging code I write myself. Debugging other people's code is much harder.

When a company makes a multi-million dollar error because an analyst used ChatGPT formulas in Excel, I expect we'll get the answer.

Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#67

Post by sokoloff »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #57
sokoloff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@airstrike gave me the following very helpful clue when I complained about this a couple years ago: "Just hit F2 while editing a formula to toggle between Edit and Enter modes, one of which will behave as you expect. The other mode, which you hate, is very useful when you want to add references to other cells into your formula"* There is a designation in the lower left of the window to show whether you're in Edit or…

Ah, I usually begin editing a pre-existing cell by tapping F2, but sometimes when I start entering a formula from scratch I just hit the "equals" sign. It feels like I'm editing a line of text but I'm actually in "enter" mode. Also, the little designation in the lower left has been there, roughly 30 inches from my eyeballs, for hundreds or possibly thousands of hours. It's changed state thousands if not millions of t…

> How have I only just now seen it?

Haha. I'm in the same boat. When writing my comment, I opened Excel, clicked on a cell, and tapped F2 repeatedly, just to see if there was anything on the screen that changed...

Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#68

Post by tinus_hn »

sxg wrote: post #16
cratermoon wrote: post #4

Great. Can they fix the autocorrect so it doesn't mangle gene names? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02211-4

Excel is a generic spreadsheet program that's designed to be used by 90% of people for 90% of use cases. Accommodating for this niche use case will definitely break things for many existing users. The real solution is for geneticists (and other data scientists) to use software designed more specifically for their use cases, such as CSV files and pandas or something more GUI-based but meant for researchers.

CSV files are unsuitable for any serious use and especially not a ‘better replacement for Excel files’. It’s an ill defined, locale dependent format of fail.

Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#69

Post by sideshowb »

axelf4 wrote: post #65
Godel_unicode wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get really mad when you call this p-hacking, btw. I used to try and make this point to ”analysts” that I worked with, that science involves coming up with a hypothesis and then looking at the data. The response I got often enough that I’m sure it’s being taught somewhere was that you “need to let the data tell it’s own story”. Turns out lots of people have decided what the conclusion is and are taking that con…

As my professor said: All good statistics is done before you have looked at the data.

But where do you get your hypothesis from?

Re: Microsoft is making Excel’s formulas easier

#70

Post by ec109685 »

pony_sheared wrote: post #48
function_seven wrote: post #2

My current #1 wish for Excel formula entry: Please let me use [Tab] and [Enter] in the formula bar without trying to commit the change! I like to format my formulas with multiple lines and indentation, but to do that I have to hold down [Alt] and mash the spacebar like a caveman. I am happy with the new features I've been seeing. LAMBDA() and the new TEXT functions are nifty.

Give AFE a whirl, you can format and comment formulas https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/garage/profiles/advanced-for...

Interesting that isn’t just a default feature in Excel.
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