Epic WTF

Spreadsheet software makes me feel nauseous. I stopped using it in 1986. On an IBM PC. Not Excel, something which preceded it.

I fall into the idiot category.

No, just unfamiliar with that particular tech and very possibly not needing to be any more familiar; a lot of people who learn a moderate amount about computing fall into the trap of thinking it's the ultimate, only and best thing. Making smart people feel stupid is a speciality of computing. The kind of idiot I'm referring to learns a little programming and ever after sneers at anything that doesn't involve for loops and endless chains of if/then/else. Spreadsheets get a lot of hate from them, but are actually a rare combination of accessibility, elegance and power.

There's a whole class of people who are good with spreadsheets but are sneered at by bad programmers. Not being good with spreadsheets doesn't make you stupid, just somebody whose talents for thinking express themselves differently.

Computing is full of cultures of contempt, where people who have found one tech solution that matches their way of thinking hate everybody who found a different way to theirs.

Excel is the best of the MS Office products

That might be the case, and the functional programming thing is even more apposite now it has lambdas. Testing your spreadsheet remains hard mind, compared to an actual programming language.

I still hate that overblown grid control though, not least because it shafts gene names.

EuSpRiG is “fun” if that kind of thing floats your boat, their Chatham House Rules conference is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.

I try to stick to knowing what I need to know. This works for me until I need something extra. My recent foray into Excel was due to being unable to create a table big enough for my task in Word. Cue panic attack 😁. My colleague was able to assist me and I managed to get the task done - learning a little too. I know my limits but it was good to learn a little more.

Testing your spreadsheet remains hard mind, compared to an actual programming language

Possibly because so many "real programmers" disdain it so it hasn't seen much investment in the necessary tooling.

I still hate that overblown grid control though

It's constraining in some ways, liberating in others.

I try to stick to knowing what I need to know. This works for me until I need something extra.

But you're painfully aware of how much you don't know. That's a good thing. It's a mark of genuine competence when somebody feels more stupid the more they learn.

I find the stupid part quite easy😁

Computing is full of cultures of contempt, where people who have found one tech solution that matches their way of thinking hate everybody who found a different way to theirs.

I hate all programmers equally, myself included.

We all hate you, ruining everything - one breath at a time.

I lie. Love You! Loved you even more when you posted more memes.

Lotus 123?

As easy as that?

I finally found some persuasive history https://www.exceltrick.com/others/history-of-excel/#:~:text=Muliplan%20was%20Microsoft's%20first%20electronic,first%20ever%20electronic%20spreadsheet%20program). I reckon it was probably MS Multiplan, badged as an IBM product. Which no customers bought, because 123 was so much better.

Quattro Pro

Sorry wasn't clear, he believed he was Andy McNabb. The same as the guy that thought he was the son of god. That level of disassociation.

Don't think it is in theses cases. Understand that there giant leaps but doesn't that mean remission or something else?

Not trying to sound like an arse but terminal, from my short experience does not bode well for the person.

In case you didn't know there is a financial modelling world cup using excel with a 25k US dollar prize.

terminal, from my short experience does not bode well for the person.

I don't think there's a time limit on it for using the term terminal. It simply means incurable and likely to result in death but it could be years away

It's a bit raw here, people can live with terminal diagnosis for many years. A close friend's wife died earlier this year after exactly this, 7+ yrs of treatment & trials for a cancer that was ultimately pretty much never going to go away given current treatment pathways.

So-called miracle cures happen all the time. Medical science isn't yet able to predict cancer outcomes with certainty. I once interviewed an oncologist who was occasionally consulted by the Vatican. The Pope's staff have a long list of nominations for sainthoods for people who've cured someone of terminal cancer. So they ask the oncologist whether the cure could have had an earthly explanation. He always says it was the patient's immune system doing its job.

Yeah this

My Dad has had an incurable cancer that will kill him for at least 8 years. Various treatments have prolonged his life.

I once lived with a guy who thought he was the living reincarnation of John the Baptist.

Too much ketamine can do that to a person.

Some modern cancer drugs can't cure cancer, they just stop it getting worse. You have to take them for the rest of your life. They can cost as much as £100,000 per patient, per annum.