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I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

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Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#331

Post by thfuran »

telegato wrote: post #292
PaulHoule wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately no. Excel is hamstrung by having to maintain backwards compatibility for an endless number of hacks. For instance, it is notorious that 0.1 + 0.2 != 0.3 in binary exponent floating point math. Excel does funny stuff with number formatting that hides this, but it is like having a bubble under a plastic sheet that moves someplace else when you push on it -- numeric strangeness appears in different places.…

To be fair in Javascript 0.1 + 0.2 === 0.3 also is false :). Not saying that Javascript is a great programming language.

Yeah, that's the case for anything using IEEE 754 floating points.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#332

Post by kgwgk »

Firadeoclus wrote: post #193
ChrisCinelli wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Both https://airtable.com/ and https://www.smartsheet.com/ in my option add some value on top. Unfortunately they are not omnipresent as Google Sheets and Excel. > Half of the mess that makes excel hell comes from the fact it's too easy to put two tables of data + some random constants on a single sheet and refer to them by H3. That is a feature. If you can keep in a screen all the data you need, you reduce…

> That is a feature. If you can keep in a screen all the data you need, you reduce the cognitive overhead of having to switch back and forth between tabs. That's true, but it doesn't necessitate different tables living in the same row/column grid.

You can also see two different tabs at the same time side by side, no need to switch back and forth.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#333

Post by Vaslo »

PaulHoule wrote: post #282
eej71 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be easier to solve those problems in the Excel development space than it will be to export the Excel solutions to another solution domain. Also the kind of mistakes you've described can (and do) happen in other programming domains that are deemed more respectable.

Unfortunately no. Excel is hamstrung by having to maintain backwards compatibility for an endless number of hacks. For instance, it is notorious that 0.1 + 0.2 != 0.3 in binary exponent floating point math. Excel does funny stuff with number formatting that hides this, but it is like having a bubble under a plastic sheet that moves someplace else when you push on it -- numeric strangeness appears in different places.…

Why would anyone working with amounts in the millions or billions care about 0.1 + 0.2 != 0.3? Splitting hairs here I think.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#334

Post by kgwgk »

qrybam wrote: post #135

Excel is powerful. It does so many things really well. Sharing data between sheets in real-time isn’t one of them though (maybe I just haven’t found the right tool, so we went ahead and built one). I worked at a large fintech company a few years ago. During my interview Excel popped up as a topic, the interviewer quipped “Excel is terrible!”, he was referencing the heavy reliance of his customers on spreadsheets rath…

> Sharing data between sheets in real-time

Do you mean between sheets in two Excel files which are open in different computers? Or did you encounter performance issues in a single computer?

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#335

Post by behringer »

michaelmrose wrote: post #327
behringer wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your solution? That the manager who wanted some report comes to you and begs you to do it and in 6 months it's finally delivered and all wrong?

If you regularly produce reports one would suppose that you would have an existing project template and know how that would allow a reasonable individual to deliver a result that isn't all wrong in a reasonable length of time not THAT dissimilar from the time to throw up a spreadsheet. This also wouldn't silo the data in the users laptop, subject it to being destroyed because the user dropped it, and limit frequency…

And meanwhile the manager that broke the rules, connected their personal copy of excel straight into the database and made the company 8 figures in profit over the course of the last year just outdid you and your team of report programmers.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#336

Post by phonon »

PaulHoule wrote: post #282
eej71 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be easier to solve those problems in the Excel development space than it will be to export the Excel solutions to another solution domain. Also the kind of mistakes you've described can (and do) happen in other programming domains that are deemed more respectable.

Unfortunately no. Excel is hamstrung by having to maintain backwards compatibility for an endless number of hacks. For instance, it is notorious that 0.1 + 0.2 != 0.3 in binary exponent floating point math. Excel does funny stuff with number formatting that hides this, but it is like having a bubble under a plastic sheet that moves someplace else when you push on it -- numeric strangeness appears in different places.…

"At its heart, VisiCalc is about numbers. One of the early decisions we made was to use decimal arithmetic so that the errors would be the same one that an accountant would see using a decimal calculator. In retrospect this was a bad decision because people turn out to not care and it made calculations much slower than they would have been in binary."

http://rmf.vc/implementingvisicalc

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#337

Post by phonon »

ekianjo wrote: post #267
phonon wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it does not support native UTF8 csv files It does though? You can export as a UTF-8 csv file...check the export options.

I am talking about importing CSV files in UTF8. If I use Japanese characters for example it fails utterly to display properly unless I import it as "Text" first.

Yes, it takes a little longer, but you should use Data > From Text/CSV for more complex text/delimited imports.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#338

Post by phonon »

jchb wrote: post #283
ekianjo wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am talking about importing CSV files in UTF8. If I use Japanese characters for example it fails utterly to display properly unless I import it as "Text" first.

The secret trick for importing data into Excel (without actually writing a file in the Excel file format): don't try CSV - as you have already noticed that will fail in all kind of fragile ways depending on your character encoding and operating system locale. Instead, convert your data into an html table and then paste or import that into Excel. But not any html table, you need to have the appropriate proprietary css…

No, you should use the Data import tools--that's what they're there for!

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#339

Post by michaelmrose »

behringer wrote: post #335
michaelmrose wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you regularly produce reports one would suppose that you would have an existing project template and know how that would allow a reasonable individual to deliver a result that isn't all wrong in a reasonable length of time not THAT dissimilar from the time to throw up a spreadsheet. This also wouldn't silo the data in the users laptop, subject it to being destroyed because the user dropped it, and limit frequency…

And meanwhile the manager that broke the rules, connected their personal copy of excel straight into the database and made the company 8 figures in profit over the course of the last year just outdid you and your team of report programmers.

Logically most of the profit making activities may be enabled by tech it usually isn't created by tech. The managers rule breaking activities are probably unrelated to his success.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#340

Post by safgasCVS »

jjakque wrote: post #247
safgasCVS wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"just like riding a bike" - best summary of Excel I've read!

And is it just me, or hopping on OpenOffice Calc or Google Sheet felt like a different device altogether: They all look like bikes, but accelerate differently, change gears differently etc?

same here. like coming home but someone has moved things around in a way thats subtle enough its not obvious but enough to make it feel unfamiliar
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