this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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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?
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.
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.
Optimist: The glass is half full.
Pessimist: The glass is half empty.
Realist: The glass is twice as big as necessary.
Excel: The glass is the 2nd of January.
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.
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.
Agree. Excel is terribly inefficient if your goal is just storing data.
Sqlite and duckdb are great, I don't know about shitty.
You don't get the visual feedback but the query language, reliability and python interface are all top notch.
Do you really don't know why, or are you being sarcastic?
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.
It's been years since I used it tbh. But "access bad" is a meme for a reason
Convinient arbitrary table software goes brrrr.
I'm so sick of people using Excel for things it's not supposed to be used for.
As a general rule if you're not actually making use of the formula tool, you probably don't need to be using Excel.