> I think Python or Ruby or something like that should be part of any
> university track high school curriculum. It is maddening that people think
> Excel is easier or more convenient.
I don't know what gets taught these days, I got taught Basic at school
and then at university Mathcad, Fortran, C. Excel just is easier and
more convenient than Python for most modelling tasks, particularly
when A) you use it every day and your C or Python from high school
hasn't been used much in years and B) every researcher in your area
knows Excel and can do something with these files. That's hugely
important when you regularly move data and models between different
people.
I can see that handling a billion data points isn't what you'd want to
use Excel for. There a script will be easier, but I don't come across
such tasks, with the exception of CFD, and there you use a specialist
package like Fluent, and for some tasks you might have to write a
subroutine yourself.
For what we did earlier in this thread I think that I can get the
answer faster via Excel than the average typist would take to merely
correctly copy type the script you wrote. And why should I use Python
to do mass and energy balances, reaction rate or heat transfer
calculations, or for processing data from thermocouples or pressure
transducers? I don't see the added value for that sort of thing.
I don't know how much work it would be for me to deal with the
temperature files available for download from HadCru, from my
experience with frequency spectrum analysis, finding the right free
tools on the internet and installing and understanding them and
applying them right might take me a work week or so, it might be much
less than that, it might be more than that. If it is comparable with
the spectrum analysis work I had to do, it's definitely not trivial,
but amounts to one week of unpaid work to achieve something somebody
familiar with the matter could do in less than half an hour.
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