The reliance on excel in all aspects of investment banking is remarkable. From the simple stuff in corporate finance (merger analysis, capital issuance etc.) to complex derivatives pricing on the market side.
On the pricing side, external libraries typically handle the heavy lifting, but excel is the glue that brings it together. Certainly not the most efficient tool - I've had spreadsheets that take over an hour to calculate. You'd hit F9 and head out to lunch.
Which movement do you think is strongest? The AI camp or the ones that think programming should absolutely be a part of a proper education in business or economics? I hope for the latter, because I think it will be the end of the huge gap there is today, between the decision makers and the engineers, two groups who quite often but for no good reason feel alienated from each other.
If you make programs that 'speak business', then you make programs that are significantly more complex than those that 'speak computer'. Learning how to handle this complexity and optimize this kind of code is not something a business/economics person wants to spend their time doing. So they leave it to someone who specializes in it.
I find that you can score someone on a whole range of skills, much as you can on computer games. The more overall skills you have, the more you will cost. If a job requires excellent programming skills but doesn't need any business skills, then paying for someone that has excellent business sills would probably be a waste of money.
In terms of your parent point about whether all business analysts should learn some programming, I think that programming skills are definitely helpful for business analysts, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient. Different skills help in different situations.
It's a pretty easily parallelizable problem since the sheet is just a dependency tree with the cells as nodes.
The build-in functions (e.g. probability distributions etc.) could also be multi-threaded, although I'm not sure if they are. Our external API called from cells was written in C++ and already multi-threaded.
More info here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/bb687899.asp...
Given that Excel isn't really targeted at these kinds of user (heavy lifting typically offloaded to external libraries) it wouldn't be "Sad" if they didn't already do it, and I would in fact be pleasantly surprised. Which is why I'm asking the question.
EDIT: Turns out you're right! https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/bb687899.asp...
To trigger these you usually have to be aware of them and write your code in a certain way.
And you cannot switch Excel to English, but leave Outlook in German. Language setting is global over all Office programms.
And even if you could, at work the IT department has greyed out that setting via some policy. Even though I am Administrator on my work desktop, I cannot change the language!
Non native english speaker, but I use English menus for all programs, and English menu language for the OS.
As long as I can write and spellcheck in my native language, I am fine.
Unless I didn't speak english at all, why would I chose to see my language's word for Edit instead of "Edit", and never be able to take advantage of 2.000.000.000 tutorials, instruction videos, forum posts, that almost all assume english menu items?
So do I - on workstations I control. Alas the mandatory corporate Windows laptop isn't one of them, so I have to constantly switch between English on my own devices and French on that laptop... Definitely hampers shortcut memorization.
Also, a curse on Microsoft for localizing Excel formulas - what were they thinking ?
You seem to be french - so I am confident you can picture someone (dad, mom, an old uncle perhaps?) that would have an easier time remembering that a function is called RECHERCHEV than if it were called VLOOKUP or ASDFNASF!#^E3 or what have you.
Yes, but then make that language a user-switchable parameter... It is not like Microsoft is shy of adding parameters to the settings dialog...
+1. It's like programming in Java or C and all the keyworks (if, interface, etc...) were changed to the local language.
Madness.
Umlaute in keywords, yay!
Example stolen from Wikipedia:
Prüfe Fall wd
Fall 1
' Auf Sonntag wird Datum vom letzten Freitag zurückgegeben
VorherigerGeschaeftstag = dt - 2
Fall 2
' Auf Montag wird Datum vom letzten Freitag zurückgegeben
VorherigerGeschaeftstag = dt - 3
Fall Sonst
' Andere Tage: vorheriges Datum wird zurückgegeben
VorherigerGeschaeftstag = dt - 1
Ende PrüfeAnd it's true even for those who during some time in their life spent some years in some English speaking country.
Googling will give you a much broader pool of solutions, and having to translate the names of options and commands you need help with just to gain access to this pool is an unnecessary extra step
sleazy, but still better than Apple.
You suggest they give their hardware for free? Or that they are forced to have their OS run in competitors hardware?
http://www.centage.com/billion-dollar-errors-from-spreadshee...
- programmers never make copy and paste errors in other languages
- programmers never reverse a plus and minus sign in other languages
- programmers never break things with a last minute change
- there are never errors due to the size of code bases
Oh, right. Nearly all of those errors happen no matter what language you are using. Because they are humans giving instructions to a computer, who just does what the human says.
(Ok, the version control complaint might be better handled by merging in git or other DVCS. And there are troubles when people give you a csv where a field is the text 1e24 and excel turns it into a number because you told it to be magic when importing, rather than specifying that column was text)
Edited to add: the focus of that article is on accounting. Double entry accounting was created to make you input everything twice to help ensure you are doing the correct thing. You mess up one of the two items and stuff doesn't balance. Modern accounting software automatically creates the second entry, so you have no idea whether you did something wrong. That's the real issue. We came up with an accounting system that is slower to help make sure you did everything correctly, then we automated it so you only have to input one entry so accounting is faster and all of a sudden, we are surprised that more mistakes are made!
> Because: > - programmers never make copy and paste errors in other languages
But they are discover-able and you can audit them and then fix them
> - programmers never reverse a plus and minus sign in other languages
But they are discover-able and you can audit them and then fix them
> - programmers never break things with a last minute change
Version control!
> - there are never errors due to the size of code bases
Yes this one is just STUPID
-
Did you watch the Spolsky video? I only ask because this is all child comments from a top level comment about a Martin Shkreli video, and since I watched that first, you might have as well and not gotten to the original video. The way Joel suggests using Excel is very like how developers program when using good practices. Always name ranges and cells before using them. Never use numbers directly in formulas (unless obvious, like 365), use the named cell/range you set up. Use tables when you want tabular data so you are prevented from accidentally using the wrong formula for portions of ranges. Use the included named formatting themes for cells that are meant to be user editable, and those that are computed.
I watched the video and very quickly came to the conclusion that Excel is an IDE+Interpreter, like what people refer to when talking about Smalltalk (I assume, I've never actually used Smalltalk). The other thought I had is that it's probably the closest we've ever gotten to what people mean when they describe a visual programming language that just about anyone can use. Predictably, we often see the counterarguments to a system like that exhibited in Excel spreadsheets, which is poorly architected and designed spaghetti-code from people that don't have enough experience to know any better because they are amateurs.
Copy and paste errors look far more discoverable when you use R1C1 mode, and look to be outright prevented in a lot of cases when using tables.
Version control might be a good argument if it actually applied. Excel is a language, and I don't see any special version control baked into other languages programmers often use. It sits on top of them, and I don't see any reason why it couldn't sit on top of Excel as well. Export to a format that is version control friendly (perhaps with the help of an extra tool) and commit to VCS. Want to make a change? Check out the spreadsheet, convert as needed, and start working. Problem solved.
Really, I came away with a much clearer picture of what Excel specifically is after the Spolsky talk, and it probably wasn't even that advanced. What it did do was give a crash course for programmers that let you make the clear associations to what you do in other languages, so there was communication going on at a few levels.
1: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/131605/best-way-to-do-ver...
A lot of what he was doing wasn't even that fancy, just lots of holding ctrl to navigate cell ranges quickly and pasting of formulas and such. I'm surprised he didn't format his data more nicely though, but if this is just for his own personal use I get it. Color formatting for inputs vs calculated metrics are really helpful though.
Or is it just that everyone in the industry that's competent breaks certain rules, and he's been targetted for being a giant asshole in a public way.
http://www.thewrap.com/martin-shkreli-challenges-captain-ame...
However, I like that he then goes on to say that there should be a system that takes care of the people who CANNOT afford the drug (government-funded or a corporate-driven solution of some sort).
The whole business take on medication and health care just seems crazy for a scandinavian citizen like myself.
Honestly, he's very candid, and he says things people don't want to hear. Sometimes he says things that are just wrong and inconsiderate, but other times he says things that are simply inconvenient truths.
For example, he brings up the Epipen situation in a different light: He says $300 ($600 for 2) is significantly cheaper than the alternative (a trip to the ER, which can be thousands of dollars). He goes on to say it's a relative bargain, and that insurance companies should be more than willing to pay for Epipens because of the potential cost savings. To him the problem isn't Mylan (which has become the target of everyone's ire) but the insurance companies or medicaid.
Whether that's true or not it's a different perspective, and as a society we need to hear things that the masses don't necessarily agree with. The US system of healthcare is highly flawed, it's not a good idea to just make a boogeyman who will hide the real issues.
The socialist take is that the government should intervene in cases where a need isn't being met in a sustainable way by the market, and people are suffering.
Another way to look at it might be that one prioritizes the future over the present.
I don't think it's controversial to say that both these are true in certain situations, and sometimes those situations overlap (such as with medicine). In a perfect world, we would have all the benefits of both the free market and socialist takes, without the downsides associated with each. It's possible we might be able to approximate this somewhat, such as with Shkreli's suggestion that the government take over production of generics. Other options are better public funding of research and development, so drug companies can shoulder less of that cost (and thus charge less to recoup investment and make a profit).
In the end, I think neither system is perfect, and both have very real advantages that we need to be careful not to discount.
What's more, Emacs have its own spreadsheet app that I like more than excel: http://orgmode.org/manual/The-spreadsheet.html .
One problem with excel is that temporary steps you went through are hidden - it's hard to reproduce the excel spreadsheet. With org mode + ipython workflow I can trace all transformations that led to the end table, but hide them when they are not relevant.
I believe this gets me the best of both worlds - some form of WYSIWYG tables like excel + IDE-like programming environment in python and version control. Excel obviously lacks proper programming tools. Jupyter notebook does not treat printed tables in a special way org does.
I wrote once a too long blog post about my org-mode data analysis workflow, part about pandas integration: https://kozikow.com/2016/05/21/very-powerful-data-analysis-e... .
What do you tend to use instead of org spreadsheet?
But if you do hate him, you can apparently call him and tell him why and he'll take the time to discuss with you why you hate him, and he does this quite calmly and rationally (given the situation)[1].
I missed the parent you were referencing, and thought one of the child comments was saying that Joel Spolsky was out on bail for securities fraud (which was the result, obviously, of me not catching who you were talking about)
oops!
:-D
His twitter is usually a gas too.
Probably we're all better off with the law coming down on him, but that doesn't preclude a day-to-day fascination.
> The identity he creates, he says, is “an extremely weird form of sarcasm.”
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13696336/1/retrophin-with-he...
I always wondered how do you do this horizontal or vertical fill with formula's using the keyboard?
This inspired me to look for more Excel hacking videos on YouTube.
Yes he acts like a giant dick, but he's got great knowledge of how to analyse an investment, and recommends great books and so on. If his life would've turned out a little different and he was less publicly abrasive, he could've been celebrated as a child prodigy or an investment wizard...sort of like this Japanese trader cis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-e1MxcjFDk (an amazing guy).
It seems like ethics, and morals are just missing in some people, and most of these people wear ties, and do it all in a legal fashion.
I have watch a few of his videos months, maybe a year ago? It seems like it was a while ago.
I watch his videos for two reasons; He was obviously opening up his life to the world, and I was curious to what this guy was all about.
I came away with, like myself, he seems to have a real lack of friends. And like myself, he definetly needs a girlfriend. Not someone he could buy, but an honest caring relationship. I definetly got the feeling he wanted people out of his league, and it really bothered him. Maybe I'm completely wrong?
I was just having a discussion with someone last night who was complaining about executive bonuses (in health insurance specifically), and how he thought that was unfair. He then went on to describe how he's moving into government work for the high pay, low effort, and how he would try to do the same pension spiking practices that's got California in so much trouble. After all, it's not illegal.
Were it not my house, I feel like I might have put my head through a wall.
You know you can say the same thing about Pablo Escobar, and Hitler, and many others. Just because someone has an innate talent at something, perhaps even a genius, does not make them worthy of the rhetoric "if only things had turned out a bit different for them...". People do what they do, we shouldn't question what they could have done.
--
Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies) is an Internet adage asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazism or Hitler approaches 1"—that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will ...
His method is known. This is why the study of history is important.
This way is a lot simpler and should cause fewer mistakes.
So, if you've got one column filled in for every row, and one row filled in for every column, you can quickly select the whole box and fill it down from the first row.
(Checking ... Libre Office 4.4 has Ctrl-D ... ah well.)
At least, that was the case in 2000.
A1=13.5 B1=A1*55.5555
The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals,
a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager [Shkreli]. Turing immediately
raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of
treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_re...
A quick scope through the options doesn't show what makes it do that. Anyone know?
I think they make it really easy to follow, especially when someone else is editing and sharing their screen.
Microsoft totally wrecked font rendering in Windows 10 (W8 too?). Edge browser doesn't have ClearType either, which is braindead for a program you spend so much time reading in.
I've done a 180 on that. The other day I started work on making a plant database, by hand; from designing the schema (columns and sheets in Excel really - blasphemy!) to typing in the values from encyclopedias, wikipedia and books by hand (ok, the latin names I copy/paste). Yes I could just use one of the several large, well-known databases; or one of the hundreds of specific-purpose ones. But making this database has taught me so much already, things I never would have learnt if I'd spend that time on writing import scripts.
Nowadays I let my students/analysts first do extensive eda, which is usually lots of tedious work that seems a waste of time to the programmer instinct. But it's not.
I practice writing things down when I cannot digest a huge piece of information. Or do visual notes like Mike Rohde.
I'm experimenting with physical notebooks myself since a few weeks actually. No electronic note taking has ever really worked well for me, although I've been getting by for 15 years. I'm not sure I'll ever find a system I'll really like - it always feels that as long as I find a way that forces me to get intimately familiar with data sets (to the point where I'm re-doing or at least re-thinking the ways the data was made to begin with), the insights bubble up by themselves. In other words I've come to the (regrettable) conclusion that methods and tools don't matter that much, it's the elbow grease that does. (of course I'm not claiming that I could analyze 15gb of data spread over 50 tables with Notepad...)
Just pulling them all in at once from an API would be like a "magic" step to most people who are trying to learn about the basics of analyzing a stock.
Using a border would require removing the border and adding a new one every three months. A line can be dragged around at will. This also makes it more useful for miscellaneous illustrative purposes.
A line however floats relative to the columns so you don't have to remove/redraw it. At worst you might have to move it.
Moving a line is 1x mouse click and a wrist flick,
Borders are more work than that.
I have to show this to emacsers, they're gonna feel jealous a bit.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFSf5YhYQbw&feature=youtu.be...