On 2008-01-16, wrote Gandalf Parker: > On Wed, 16 Jan 2008, Bryan Richter wrote: > >On Jan 16, 2008 1:30 PM, Dylan Beaudette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> > >>They work exclusively with Excel. > >> > >The big cheese couldn't understand that they needed a database > >application! We're talking terabytes of data over the life of the > >project, and they're trying to get Sue to whip something together all > >by herself because of their complete unfamiliarity with the concept. > > In the computer classes I taught the military I had to broach that > subject. I would say "yes you CAN do it in a spreadsheet, or in Word > tables, or a presentation, etc etc. But why ignore what they do best? > Basically its like this. If its going to be read, then Word does it best. > If its going to be presented, then a presentation is best. If you are > going to do mathematical things with numbers, then a spreadsheet will do > it best. If you are doing things with words like sort and search then a > database is best.
Good approach, though i would disagree with the statement that mathy stuff with numbers is best in spreadsheets. I've wasted enough time scrubbing spreadsheet cells one by one to see the hidden formulas to find the one with the error to decide that spreadsheets are unsuitable for anything except quick exploratory analysis that will later be transferred to a robust environment (i.e., R). This is a consequence of the broken design model of spreadsheets. Specific programs (*cough* Excel *cough*) also have nasty bugs in their math functions (that have been known for years but never fixed) that yield mathematically invalid results when presented with certain atypical inputs. Just say no to spreadsheets. -- Henry House +1 530 753 3361 ext. 13 Please don't send me HTML mail! My mail system frequently rejects it. The unintelligible text that may follow is a digital signature. See <http://hajhouse.org/pgp> to find out how to use it. My OpenPGP key: <http://hajhouse.org/hajhouse.asc>.
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