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One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

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Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#151

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

zmgsabst wrote: post #138
setopt wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good way to think of it. It would be very confusing if “0 - 3^2” and “0 + (-3^2)” should mean different things.

But what about (0-3)^2? You said that “-3” = “0-3”. So we have “-3^2” is “(0-3)^2” is 9. Agreeing with -3^2 = 9. You’re performing a sleight of hand when you define “-3” to be “0-3”, but move the parenthesis to get your second equation. You have to insert your definition as a single term inside parenthesis — you can’t simply remove them to change association (as you have done). That’s against the rules. So if you thi…

> (0-3)^2?

It’s entirely unambiguous due to the parenthesis.

I don’t think the rest of your argument actually makes sense.

There is no sleight of hand required. The original argument is entirely related to having unary minus and binary minus which are different operators conceptually have similar precedence as being less surprising.

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#152

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #94
bikenaga wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Isn't this treating 3 as something that can be analyzed from -3? Like -3 is the union of 3 and the (-), and not something onto itself. Ought it to be the case that negative is more than just a sign? Like, I think 3 should be ontologically distinct from -3, even if the addition of 3 and -3 = 0. Idk, I don't have a reason for this, it feels right for some reason.

You are mistaking the notation for the object.

There is indeed two ontologically different elements 3 and (-3) in Z. The question is however purely about what is the meaning of the ambiguous without precedence rules representation -3^2.

Note that it gets more complicated quickly if you want to keep thinking about it in that mathematicians often consider ontologically different but equivalent operations as the same when it’s irrelevant to what they are doing or the results trivially extend to both case. See for example 3-3 and 3+(-3).

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#153

Post by archargelod »

Validark wrote: post #135
bikenaga wrote: post #48

An annoyance with spreadsheets that deterred me from ever using them in teaching is that they've perpetuated a arithmetic order-of-precedence bug. ("Bug" in the sense that it contradicts long-standing mathematical convention.) If you type -3^2 in a cell and press ENTER, the spreadsheet tell you it's "9". It should be "-9"; in math, exponentiation has precedence over unary minus, so you square 3, then negate the resul…

This is probably the most overly pedantic, nitpicky reason for not using a program I've ever heard. I'm aware that there are two different conventions on this issue, so I just use parentheses to get the behavior I want. But, growing up, as the top math student in my class, it never occurred to me that somebody out there wants -3^2 to equal -9, I thought it was just a weird quirk in some calculators/programs. How woul…

I think we should agree that standard notation is too ambigious and switch to reverse polish notation:

  3 2 ^ -     -9
  3 - 2 ^      9
No way to misinterpret that!

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#154

Post by AtNightWeCode »

bikenaga wrote: post #48

An annoyance with spreadsheets that deterred me from ever using them in teaching is that they've perpetuated a arithmetic order-of-precedence bug. ("Bug" in the sense that it contradicts long-standing mathematical convention.) If you type -3^2 in a cell and press ENTER, the spreadsheet tell you it's "9". It should be "-9"; in math, exponentiation has precedence over unary minus, so you square 3, then negate the resul…

The exponent operator is just short for the POWER function in Excel. So from that perspective it is the correct behaviour I think even if it is mathematical incorrect.

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#155

Post by AllegedAlec »

bvan wrote: post #78

Sounds like user-error, not a software error. Learn to use the software and its idiosyncrasies. RTFM.

God I hate programmers so much.

"Hurdurdur it's not my fault. The end users are wrong. We shouldn't have to spend time creating an interface and UX that actually works as expected"

Absolute fucking retards. We make tools for these people. If these tools do not work as end users would expect to that is our mistake. Stop coping about 'training end users'.

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#156

Post by nuc1e0n »

jsmith99 wrote: post #147
nuc1e0n wrote: post #143

A HN thread similar to this one about how using Microsoft Excel corrupts data occurs about once a month. Nothing ever comes of it. Those emotionally invested in using Excel actively ignore criticism of it, or themselves for that matter.

Actually Microsoft have recently added a warning dialog about certain automatic csv conversions. Perhaps they finally read the thread. https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/control-data-con...

Yes I'm aware. It would be good to have a group policy or some such registry setting to disable them all by default for every computer on the network.

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#157

Post by jampekka »

Dalewyn wrote: post #132
aezart wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Godot game engine has its 2d graphics origin at the top-left of the screen, with the positive Y axis pointed down. Having clockwise trig functions is a natural consequence of that. I think it's a fairly common setup for all 2D graphics software.

I don't think I've ever seen a graphical system of any kind that didn't have 0,0 at the top-left corner of the monitor or viewport either, with positive x going right and positive y going down. I actually didn't even think about it until now. Now it's going to bug me. God damnit. :V

E.g. OpenGL normalized device coordinates have x=0,y=0 at screen center, with top left being x=-1,y=1. It's easier to reason with in many cases.

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#158

Post by XlA5vEKsMISoIln »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #56

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?

Introducing checkboxes somewhere in the bowels of settings adds more ways for things to go wrong.

What is the default? Do the defaults differ across versions? How do you keep it consistent across computers and installations? What if you actually need the function ad hoc?

This reminds me of CSV export. I haven't used Windows for a decade but I remember that if you wanted to change how decimal numbers were exported you had to change the locale and reboot the computer. To change a setting in Excel. That is insane. Sprinkling checkbox patches isn't too far from this.

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#159

Post by tsimionescu »

MrJohz wrote: post #105
bc_programming wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This issue seems like partly an artifact of the invented binary operator ^. In math exponents are superscripts and there's no binary operator- it's part of the term. But for text on computers, binary operators ended up being fabricated for the things you couldn't represent directly. The caret is common and was the first one to appear, but doubled multiplication signs is another one. Traditionally, binary operators ha…

I suspect it's more likely an artifact of how the number is lexed. `-3^2` probably gets lexed into Number(-3), Operator(^), Number(2), which results in the aforementioned precedence issues. The reason for parsing the operator with the number is that it makes it easier to handle the case where you just write a negative number as a literal value into a cell. Source: I've written an Excel clone before. I don't believe i…

It's almost certainly a precedence issue. It's much easier to consider that unary operators have precedence over binary operators, and just learn the precedence rules for each class, rather than a global precedence rule. Plus, there's no conflict with math notation, as there is no exponentiation operator in math.

Re: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Excel (2016)

#160

Post by [deleted] »

bikenaga wrote: post #48

An annoyance with spreadsheets that deterred me from ever using them in teaching is that they've perpetuated a arithmetic order-of-precedence bug. ("Bug" in the sense that it contradicts long-standing mathematical convention.) If you type -3^2 in a cell and press ENTER, the spreadsheet tell you it's "9". It should be "-9"; in math, exponentiation has precedence over unary minus, so you square 3, then negate the resul…

[deleted]
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