This isn’t a fix. Excel wasn’t meant for this. While I do understand it’s convenient as a database, unless you’re doing something unimportant and small you just really should use something proper. And even now that this “problem” is gone, I am certain there are still more things that cause trouble. You can not satisfy everyone and Excel was just… not made for gene info storage.
Even if you don’t want to use stuff that isn’t Microsoft Office, that comes with Microsoft Access, which is a proper database management system. It’s literally in the same software package, so why do people refuse to use it?
I’ve never used Access personally, so I don’t know if it’s any good or not, I’m just frustrated by people using spreadsheets for data storage.
Why would you need a full blown (shitty) relational database management system to store gene info? Excel should be just fine for storing data in arbitrary tables. It shouldn’t make assumptions about your data by default, and changing values that look like they’re in a specific format should be opt-in, not default behavior.
That is not what it was made for. It was made to do shenanigans with values like doing math on them and plotting graphs. If you merely want data storage, use a table. I agree, a database is overkill for most things, but that doesn’t change the fact that Excel is the wrong tool for the job. Maybe if they added a table mode where it’s basically just a frontend for a csv it’d work, but right now I’d still say it’s better to use a scalpel than a hammer, even if scissors do the trick just fine.
It shouldn’t make assumptions about your data by default, and changing values that look like they’re in a specific format should be opt-in, not default behavior
But that’s exactly what made the “auto” data type of Excel such a powerful tool when introduced. If you’re storing text, make the datatype “text”, problem solved.
Nowadays, when making stuff like Excel from scratch, you could opt for a “these look like dates, change the type from ‘none’ to ‘date’?” but with middle management being conditioned on the data type being ‘auto’, that’s something that’s hard to change.
Honestly, I’d say you shouldn’t do that prompt method. The auto type is genuinely great for the use cases which Excel is supposed to be used for, from someone managing their household finances to charting the growth of a business.
By all means, it absolutely should make assumptions about your data by default, as that’s incredibly convenient for the average user. You can always change the type of a cell afterwards if what you’re doing is special.
Office Libre is free, and modern MS Office UIs looks like dog dookie. OL can also save in Excel format if you want.
Hey look at that, I found a solution that didn’t require they change their entire process or have to wait for Microsloughed to get their act together.
The idea that any scientist is doing data analysis in Excel is honestly terrifying on every level.
Because every scientist is also a programmer?
Especially if they struggle to use Excel properly, no chance.
Excel sucks open ass. At storing data, at displaying data, at analyzing data. Scientists, of all people, should understand how to use an RDBMS and a data processing framework like R.
What the hell else is there? Good luck getting universities using OpenOffice
Scientists should be using programming languages like R or Python. They are both extremely popular in this field, much more than Excel.
Microsoft fixes one of the Excel features that wreck scientific data.
Now if only it would stop dropping leading zeros unless you ask it, and we got rid of the MM/DD/yyyy date format entirely.
I think the point was that the format itself is odd. I am European and it’s weird to me: logically it should be either from greatest to smallest, or from smallest to greatest, not a weird in-between.
Now if only it would stop dropping leading zeros unless you ask it
That appears to actually be a feature.
Holy shit! Now I just need to talk to some sysadmins and get some group policies set.
Apparently our typical installer for Visio 2016 and our 365 license use “incompatible installers” so it is going to be a pain in the ass for me to have both installed at the same time. Thankfully I’m trusted by IT so I might be able to just do it myself.
Edit: Looks like I’ll need IT after all. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/use-the-office-deployment-tool-to-install-volume-licensed-editions-of-visio-2016
