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A comment on Open source electronic lab notebook. Parent comment

Re:Open source electronic lab notebook by jaclaz on Thursday June 15, 2017 @01:26PM (#14562404)
>There is a long list of cases where companies and governments have made huge decisions that were based on Excel spreadsheets where the models had fundamental flaws

Sure, but how do they compare with the (IMHO countless) number of "right huge decisions" made on actually accurate and well devised Excel spreadsheets?

Excel is a tool, it has its limits like any tool, and should be used - like any other tool - with caution when "huge" decisions are made on it.

And like any tool you cannot put the blame on it because someone cannot use it properly.

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Re:Open source electronic lab notebook by semi-extrinsic on Thursday June 15, 2017 @02:44PM (#14563182)
No, Excel is to blame, because it's way too happy to convert your data into something else it thinks is appropriate. A proper system (SPSS, R, Pandas, you name it) will yell at you if you try to do nonsensical stuff.
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Re:Open source electronic lab notebook by jaclaz on Saturday June 17, 2017 @09:25AM (#14575799)
No doubt that there are "better" tools, still you can't put the blame on Excel. You can choose to put it on either the sloppyness/lazyness of not having checked (double checked) data and formulas or to the decision to use Excel (possibly due the ignorance of the existence of other "better" tools).
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