81–90 of 267 posts
But why oh why can't you disable automatic date reading? Put something in settings with a checkbox that I, the user, can tell excel to F-off with that nonsense. Is there anybody who can argue the 'for' case for having this on all the time without recourse?
https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/control-data-con...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fortunately these rules are natural and easy to remember, especially the details of how different languages choose different orders, relative to the confusing and abhorrent prefix notation (- (^ 3 2)) or (^ (- 3) 2).
As a lover of prefix and postfix notation, there is an unambiguous parsing of each of those that does not deepened on any order of operations. Neither lisp nor forth have the question at all - you can only write it exactly as you mean it. (- (expt 3 2)) is always -9 without needing to ask which has higher precedence. (expt -3 2) is likewise always 9. There is no question if - is a binary or unary operator in prefix n…
3 _ 2 ^ p gives 0
_3 2 ^ p gives 9
3 2 ^ _ p gives 0
5 _ p gives 0
_5 p gives -5
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it's 9! Check it: https://www.mathplanet.com/education/pre-algebra/explore-and... . "You also have to pay attention to the signs when you multiply and divide. There are two simple rules to remember: When you multiply a negative number by a positive number then the product is always negative. When you multiply two negative numbers or two positive numbers then the product is always positive." So basically you have…
No - in a subtle way, you're assuming that the unary minus has precedence, when the point is that it doesn't. You're right that "thing^2" means "thing times thing", but in "-3^2", what is it that is being squared? To write it, as you did, as "(-3) x (-3)", assumes that in "-3^2" the thing being squared is "-3". But that in turn assumes that the unary minus is done before the square. By the standard mathematical conve…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fortunately these rules are natural and easy to remember, especially the details of how different languages choose different orders, relative to the confusing and abhorrent prefix notation (- (^ 3 2)) or (^ (- 3) 2).
As a lover of prefix and postfix notation, there is an unambiguous parsing of each of those that does not deepened on any order of operations. Neither lisp nor forth have the question at all - you can only write it exactly as you mean it. (- (expt 3 2)) is always -9 without needing to ask which has higher precedence. (expt -3 2) is likewise always 9. There is no question if - is a binary or unary operator in prefix n…
Postfix is interesting in forth. It makes the stack manipulations very easy to reason about, and the stack is very important there so this looks like a win. The cost is in coherently expressing complex functions, hence the advice to keep words simple. The forth programmers are doing register allocation interwoven with the domain logic.
Lisp makes semantics very easy to write down and obfuscates the memory management implied. No thought goes on register allocation but neither can you easily talk about it.
Discarding the lever of syntactic representation is helpful for communication and obstructive to cognition. See also macros.
I've seen things created in MS Access that can't be unseen.
The problem with Excel is that it tries to do almost everything in one software tool: front-end (editing, presentation), analysis, semantic modeling, data storage/database. Almost all reasonable engineers see that there is something wrong with such an approach. But almost all everyday computer users think that this is the way computing has to be. Sometimes I wonder why even I voluntarily open it for certain tasks - a…
The biggest problem is that the development cost for a solution 'a bit better' than a complex Excel spreadsheet is often stratospheric. Many tech start-ups are 'replace this thing people do in Excel with a purpose built tool'
(Certainly possible, I teach "I don't want to be a programmer"-types all the time. Taught a class this week in fact.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it's 9! Check it: https://www.mathplanet.com/education/pre-algebra/explore-and... . "You also have to pay attention to the signs when you multiply and divide. There are two simple rules to remember: When you multiply a negative number by a positive number then the product is always negative. When you multiply two negative numbers or two positive numbers then the product is always positive." So basically you have…
No - in a subtle way, you're assuming that the unary minus has precedence, when the point is that it doesn't. You're right that "thing^2" means "thing times thing", but in "-3^2", what is it that is being squared? To write it, as you did, as "(-3) x (-3)", assumes that in "-3^2" the thing being squared is "-3". But that in turn assumes that the unary minus is done before the square. By the standard mathematical conve…
they sound like something that would be helpful but in practice they just end up being a massive violation of the principle of least surprise.
Missing checkbox. "Assume Everything Is A String" We used to hit all kinds of Excel weirdness with inventory etc. It was our fault that our part numbers could look like this: 00010190-95.020
That feature already exists. It's technically not a "checkbox", but you can set a cell (or all of them) as string type in like 3 clicks.