I learned how to do a fucking LOT of statistical shit in my degree. I also learned to get REALLY good at all kinds of shit in Excel.
Guess which helped my career on an actual practical way the most? Guess which made people seek me out at work for help with things?
Sometimes Excel is what’s available. Sometimes it’s just faster to do it that way rather than code up some ridiculously overdone solution in some programming language. Having both skills is best, but don’t shit on opening an excel and just fucking getting it done, whatever it is.
If used right, it can also be a great equalizer with those less technically skilled in your workplace. You can quickly format and tune things and even layer a little bit of vba to make their lives easier without having to get into the complexity of an entire bespoke coded solution.
Also, a reminder for those in the back. For most of us, we aren’t in college to learn a specific skill so much as we are there to learn how to be taught. To prove we are capable of taking instructions and producing results as requested.
If you never understand this, then you’ll never understand later why you fail to land a high quality job.
For most of us, we aren’t in college to learn a specific skill so much as we are there to learn how to be taught. To prove we are capable of taking instructions and producing results as requested.
This is true to the extent that you won’t be solving Organic Chemistry 1 or Linear Algebra exercises at your workplace, but I think it’s misleading. If anything, from my experience, people focus too much on producing the results and not enough on learning the skills. A lot of people stay on the mindset of “I only need the degree / where am I going to need that / the industry has moved on from this” and don’t build strong foundations
This is more of an argument for LibreOffice (and in line with the post you’re replying to) than it’s an argument for using a programming language, let alone a specific one.
Current version of Excel stripped out a macro I made to make a specific task easier. It didn’t just block it from running. It refused to let me even see it anymore.
LibreOffice allowed me to see it again so I could re-implement it temporarily. I love how often Microsoft’s own tools can’t do what FOSS can with Microsoft files.
R, the language where dependency resolution is built upon thoughts and prayers.
Say what you want about Excel, but compatibility is kinda decent (ignoring locales and DNA sequences). Meanwhile, good luck replicating your R installation on another machine.
I learned how to do a fucking LOT of statistical shit in my degree. I also learned to get REALLY good at all kinds of shit in Excel.
Guess which helped my career on an actual practical way the most? Guess which made people seek me out at work for help with things?
Sometimes Excel is what’s available. Sometimes it’s just faster to do it that way rather than code up some ridiculously overdone solution in some programming language. Having both skills is best, but don’t shit on opening an excel and just fucking getting it done, whatever it is.
If used right, it can also be a great equalizer with those less technically skilled in your workplace. You can quickly format and tune things and even layer a little bit of vba to make their lives easier without having to get into the complexity of an entire bespoke coded solution.
Also, a reminder for those in the back. For most of us, we aren’t in college to learn a specific skill so much as we are there to learn how to be taught. To prove we are capable of taking instructions and producing results as requested.
If you never understand this, then you’ll never understand later why you fail to land a high quality job.
This is true to the extent that you won’t be solving Organic Chemistry 1 or Linear Algebra exercises at your workplace, but I think it’s misleading. If anything, from my experience, people focus too much on producing the results and not enough on learning the skills. A lot of people stay on the mindset of “I only need the degree / where am I going to need that / the industry has moved on from this” and don’t build strong foundations
FOSS is always available. R is always available. Your points remain but you’re never in a situation where Excel is the only thing you can use.
Where I worked, many of the contacts specifically said we could not use open source software, so no, it is not always available.
You are if company policy dictates that’s all you can use.
This is more of an argument for LibreOffice (and in line with the post you’re replying to) than it’s an argument for using a programming language, let alone a specific one.
Current version of Excel stripped out a macro I made to make a specific task easier. It didn’t just block it from running. It refused to let me even see it anymore.
LibreOffice allowed me to see it again so I could re-implement it temporarily. I love how often Microsoft’s own tools can’t do what FOSS can with Microsoft files.
R, the language where dependency resolution is built upon thoughts and prayers.
Say what you want about Excel, but compatibility is kinda decent (ignoring locales and DNA sequences). Meanwhile, good luck replicating your R installation on another machine.