i think, if i might be allowed to speak for jon, .... he would say that it
is a good SPREADSHEET package ... that was what it was designed for ...
add ons to make it also a statistical package ... are a different matter
it is sort of like having ms word ... where it has this add on feature of
letting you input some numbers into a page ... and then it will crank out
some graphs for you ... or some descriptive statistics ... we would have to
be a bit careful
At 11:53 AM 1/29/01 -0900, Shareef Siddeek wrote:
> Then, what is the use of EXCEL?
>Siddeek
we could ask this in another way ... why do people use excel ... when there
are a number of other spreadsheet programs out there ... quattro, etc.
i would suspect that over time, people have found excel to be most
accurate? useful for doing the kinds of spreadsheet things IT WAS DESIGNED
for? easier files to be able to export to or import from other things, etc
we might also say ... well, it now is also a stat package ... so that makes
it even more popular ...
but, the argument that if you have excel, then the stat package add on
makes it real cheap ... and since so many have excel ... why not then just
make it their stat package too ... ???
you don't do this for the same reason that if you want to do professional
measurement analysis, you select something specifically designed for that
... and tested over time ... or why you don't select notepad for doing word
processing (though it might be ok for some things) ... you make people know
word or something comparable
the notion that we should try to have one package do all ... seems silly
of course, we have observed in many graduate programs that want students to
learn about research ... that we find that many advisors are trying harder
and harder to get students into that ONE course that does all ...
unfortunately, one course does not do all
just like excel ...
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