Hi: My current version of Gnumeric is not working well so I need advice on a replacement. I mostly used Gnumeric to balance my checkbook but I did find an Awk replacement here: ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/scripts/checks
The temporary absence of Gnumeric lead me to reflect on the whole GUI paradigm; namely drag and drop, hunt through combo boxes for the right function versus just googling for some Awk/Bash/PERL script that would accomplish the same thing Truth be told I only used a minuscule portion of Gnumeric's capabilities. My dissatisfaction with spreadsheets is two fold. The primary reasons are given by Christopher Browne's excellent essays on desktop Linux applications: This excerpt agrees with my sentiments too: from: http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/spreadsheets.html --------------------------------------------------- 1.2. Problems with Modern Spreadsheet Developments "Enhancements" of spreadsheets over the last few years have not involved any substantive improvements in functionality, but have primarily just involved enhancing their "typesetting" capabilities, that is, the ability to change fonts, insert special formatting, and to otherwise make tables look "pretty." I put "enhancements" in quotes because I am skeptical that this actually represents a true improvement of either the quality of the information or user efficiency in finding and using information. These so-called improvements gloss over the continuing problems that plague spreadsheet users: *Spreadsheet models encourage the use of "spaghetti" logic, where cells point to cells that point to cells, and can grow into random networks of calculation logic; * They permit lots of easy off-by-one errors; * They generally are difficult to verify/audit; * They do not provide good tools for managing data either in terms of consolidation or searching for specific detail; * Perhaps most importantly, despite their convenience, spreadsheets are not a robust repository for information. ------------------------------------------------------- Even more damning is this insight from the spreadsheet FAQ: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/spreadsheets/faq/ >From the section: 7.1 Why does my spreadsheet say 0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1+0.1-0.5 isn't 0? .... frustratingly, Microsoft Excel _does_ store values as integer hundredths to make the files smaller, but it does _not_ use these precise values in its calculations, as that perfect accuracy would make it slower! ... I have observed this inaccuracy with Excel many times and it has been a source of vexation for me. NOTE: these problems don't crop up in bc or Python. Also Gnumeric does not suffer from this deficiency either. Gnumeric calculates exactly. Also Gnumeric uses R as it's core engine for doing math and statistics So my question to CWE-Lug people is what would be a good replacement for the spreadsheet? I offer a few candidates but I want your comments too. 1) Awk - Easy to use. Many scripts available on the Internet. Replicates spreadsheet functionality by arranging numbers in columnar format, just like a spreadsheet. Much more flexible than a spreadsheet (IMHO). 2) Use GNU Oleo or SC or it's derivative Xspread (by James Gosling I believe). 3) Use Octave or R 4) Learn Python or PERL. In the long run, this might be more beneficial than trying to memorize the"switchology" (combo boxes, radio buttons, tabs, etc.) of a constantly changing GUI interface. -- Thanks in advance, Jonathan _______________________________________________ CWE-LUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.cwelug.org/ http://www.cwelug.org/archives/ http://www.cwelug.org/mailinglist/
