Ask HN: Why Does Excel Default to Scientific Freaking Notation

Re:Ask HN: Why Does Excel Default to Scientific Freaking Not... by sp332 on Friday March 10, 2023 @07:56PM (#35103737)

Numbers in Excel are limited to 15 digits, no matter what notation. If you want a number-looking string yo be a string, you can quote it with a leading ' .

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Re:Ask HN: Why Does Excel Default to Scientific Freaking Not... by Alupis on Friday March 10, 2023 @08:07PM (#35103845)

Everyone knows how to wrestle Excel into cooperating, but that's the point - you shouldn't have to.

I would posit there's a near zero likelihood that someone copy/pasting a, say 21 digit number, wants it to automatically convert to Scientific Notation and lose data.

Excel should do the least astonishing thing when someone is working with data. If it cannot handle 15+ digits, it should assume a string, not a broken number.

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Re:Ask HN: Why Does Excel Default to Scientific Freaking Not... by scantis on Friday March 10, 2023 @09:25PM (#35104461)

Check out EXCEL induced genome renaming.

Like the northern star, a refusal to waiver under any persuasion.

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Re:Ask HN: Why Does Excel Default to Scientific Freaking Not... by FunkHose on Friday March 10, 2023 @10:33PM (#35104943)

Then you’d have someone complaining they can’t perform math on the numbers they just posted into Excel.

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Re:Ask HN: Why Does Excel Default to Scientific Freaking Not... by thfuran on Sunday March 12, 2023 @05:04PM (#35126278)

There is no universally least astonishing thing for something with usecases as varied as excel. But I suspect that treating numbers as text is close to maximally astonishing.

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