Recalc Or Die: Excel 1.0 Developers Celebrate Their Baby's 30th Birthday

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Recalc Or Die: Excel 1.0 Developers Celebrate Their Baby's 30th Birthday

Posted by timothy on Saturday September 26, 2015 @05:33AM from the somebody's-gotta-love-it dept.

theodp writes: This weekend, reports GeekWire, many of the original Excel team members are getting together to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the software's release. "We certainly ripped some stuff off," acknowledged Microsoft Excel 1.0 lead developer Doug Klunder, "but we also did some things that nobody else had done at the time and probably hasn't done since — some of which are really insane, and some of which turn out to be pretty handy." Klunder, who was responsible for Excel's killer "intelligent recalc" feature, quit his job after Bill Gates decided to shift the original Excel project from MS-DOS to the Mac, but ended up coming back and finishing the project after an ill-fated stint as a farm worker in the lettuce fields of California. "Just imagine having this product where one of the key components of it is really only understood by this guy who will quit routinely and go be a migrant farm worker down in California," said Excel 1.0 program manager Jabe Blumenthal. "It was not necessarily the most traditional or stable of environments." Many of the original Excel team members still use the program today — the RSVP sheet for this weekend's party was an Excel Online document. Before a professional naming firm came up with "Excel," the software was known by its code name "Odyssey", and other product names considered by Microsoft included "Master Plan" and "Mr. Spreadsheet." By the way, "Mr. Spreadsheet" makes his MOOC debut next week in edX's free-to-audit Excel for Data Analysis and Visualization course.

119 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

happy borthday by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 05:48 · Score: -1

Sue me Warner Bros faggots
Does Excel work yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 05:49 · Score: -1

Every time I use it, I come across some weird implementation of a function or weird rounding error that suggests they all use machine floating point, which is utterly inappropriate for anything demanding known precision. Excel seems to be software for people doing nothing of import, the right hand of Powerpoint.
1. Re:Does Excel work yet? by ledow · 2015-09-26 06:32 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Few people using a spreadsheet need anything more than integers and currency formats, and the odd percentage. If you're calculating millions of dollars and chopping odd percents and odd fractions here and there, and relying on a spreadsheet of any kind, you're in for a world of hurt.
  Spreadsheets are used by every small/medium business, to tot up their earnings, which are invariably integer or - at most - two decimal places.
  The kind of place that needs any more precision shouldn't be using a spreadsheet (e.g. mathematicians, engineering etc.) and/or should be double-checking every entry another way anyway (e.g. accounting, engineering).
  Unfortunately for your mindset, there are MILLIONS of times more people doing their basic accounting in a spreadsheet - as they probably should if they don't want to pay a fortune to Sage - than frustrated mathematicians who can't afford MatLab, Maple or similar.
  It's like asking why a bank prints out ten million customer statements using Word. They shouldn't be. But they might well draft something in Word to send to the printer or provide the template for the report output. But there are a million small businesses, authors, technical writers, lab technicians, lawyers, and a myriad other professions out there for whom Word is perfectly adequate.
  Same thing.
2. Re: Does Excel work yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 07:57 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Actually, I calculate today to be Excel's 30.00000001th birthday.
3. Re: Does Excel work yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 07:59 · Score: 0
  
  It's not that difficult to ditch floating point and use binary coded decimal. I think the x86 instruction set even handles these kinds of computations natively. And for financial stuff, even small time, mom-and-pop accounting, BCD is the only sane choice.
4. Re:Does Excel work yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 08:48 · Score: 0
  
  Few people using a spreadsheet need anything more than integers and currency formats, and the odd percentage. If you're calculating millions of dollars and chopping odd percents and odd fractions here and there, and relying on a spreadsheet of any kind, you're in for a world of hurt.
  You obviously have never stepped foot on any financial tradefloor in the world have you?
5. Re:Does Excel work yet? by fustakrakich · 2015-09-26 10:00 · Score: 1
  
  utterly inappropriate for anything demanding known precision.
  That's why it works best with irrational numbers...
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
6. Re: Does Excel work yet? by Waffle+Iron · 2015-09-26 10:06 · Score: 0
  
  All computer numerical models are imprecise.
  Accountants have a favorite model. It's full of its own errors (like rounding many intermediate results to only two digits of fractional precision), but these are the errors accountants are used to seeing, regardless of how large the errors are. So they go on and on about how "superior" their model is when other models come up with slightly different results, even if those results might sometimes be closer to the abstract ideal. Accountants are smug in their knowledge that their peers can calculate erroneous results that exactly match their own.
7. Re:Does Excel work yet? by murdocj · 2015-09-26 12:18 · Score: 0
  
  Answer: no. I'm always amazed that people can still use Excel. I only use it a relatively small amount and run into nasty bugs. Is there really no one out there who can write a working spreadsheet?
8. Re: Does Excel work yet? by Antony+T+Curtis · 2015-09-26 15:50 · Score: 1
  
  I think the instructions to support BCD went the way of the Dodo when AMD created their x86-64 dialect which is the defacto today.
  
  --
  No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
9. Re:Does Excel work yet? by Hognoxious · 2015-09-26 18:52 · Score: 1
  
  Spreadsheets are used by every small/medium business, to tot up their earnings, which are invariably integer or - at most - two decimal places.
  
  I'm from Kuwait, you insensitive clod!
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
10. Re:Does Excel work yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 20:20 · Score: 0
  
  You are so wrong it's funny. There are a breathtaking number of people using Excel to calculate millions of dollars and chopping here and there. They may be a small minority of Excel users, but they are still vast in number.
  If you worked in finance you would know this.
  And they are doing it wrong. And we haven't even discussed model errors.
11. Re: Does Excel work yet? by towermac · 2015-09-26 22:10 · Score: 1
  
  This. You don't see it in Excel (well I don't think I have); you see it when you pull your data into something else.
12. Re:Does Excel work yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 23:24 · Score: 0
  
  The first paragraph was from the GP I messed up the tags. The last line was mine.
  Try reading the whole post before replying in future.
13. Re:Does Excel work yet? by Hognoxious · 2015-09-26 23:35 · Score: 1
  
  Unfortunately on TODaStWD I only saw people washing dishes, but I'm surprised they don't have something custom made. Excel is error prone to say the least.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
14. Re:Does Excel work yet? by tehcyder · 2015-09-28 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  Answer: no. I'm always amazed that people can still use Excel. I only use it a relatively small amount and run into nasty bugs. Is there really no one out there who can write a working spreadsheet?
  Let me guess, you're using Excel to analyse your daily 42 PB data feed from the LHC and solve the mysteries of the cosmos?
  Because no one's interested in people who just use spreadsheets to keep a record of their monthly expense claim, or whatever.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
15. Re: Does Excel work yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-28 05:39 · Score: 0
  
  I think the instructions to support BCD went the way of the Dodo when AMD created their x86-64 dialect which is the defacto today.
  And you think that we need BCD... why exactly ? There is Base-10000... no need for slow BCD :)
Here's a new one from me by TheHaikuLover · 2015-09-26 05:50 · Score: -1, Troll

His erect penis,
Plugged into a man's anus.
He is a faggot.
1. Re:Here's a new one from me by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 05:53 · Score: -1
  
  "He was crying.
  Tears were streaming down his face.
  He was in agony.
  It was a heart-wrenching sight."
2. Re:Here's a new one from me by fisted · 2015-09-26 07:16 · Score: 0
  
  "He yelled up the basement stairs,
  in excitement:
  MAAA!
  I POSTED IT AGAIN!"
  
  --
  CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Excel by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 05:51 · Score: 1

Still the best there is. Crushes all competitors like libre office and google docs. They can't handle complex formulas like Excel (tm) can do.
You wanna be the best? Use the best.
Excel is a bit like SAP by vikingpower · 2015-09-26 05:52 · Score: -1, Troll

Users galore, in their thousands and millions, but no one really loves it. At least - did you ever hear one say "I love Excel" or "I love SAP" ?

--
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
1. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I love Excel
2. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:01 · Score: 0
  
  I love SAP.
3. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:02 · Score: 0
  
  Have you ever met a person that will say that they love spreadsheets?
  If you say that you have, you are crazy, or they are crazy.
4. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:09 · Score: 0
  
  People who play EVE Online. Excel with Visual Effects.
5. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:38 · Score: 0, Interesting
  
  Excel did the job just fine until the ribbon UI came and MS decided that all those useless icons are more worth than the cells in spreadsheet. And since the file-menu started opening the full-screen crap, it was time for me to move on to alternatives which actually are now better than the Excel itself. After ms-office started using only two shades of grey as its UI, many are really forced to move the alternatives, as the UI is really too uncomfortable to use for a day.
6. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by TechyImmigrant · 2015-09-26 06:42 · Score: 2
  
  I like Excel. It has a good user interface for editing tables. It has good cell formatting for representing currency. It has enough statistics to do basic stuff.
  Even when I'm pouring data into R or a python numpy script, I'll usually run it through excel to get the csv right.
  I would like it a lot more if it had serious statistical functions, unlimited integers, GF arithmetic and a proper scripting language.
  
  --
  I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
7. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 07:07 · Score: -1
  
  Exactly. The ribbon still sucks, and the "File Menu" popping into a full-screen is obnoxious and retarded.
  What alternatives are you using?
8. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by tigersha · 2015-09-26 07:16 · Score: 1
  
  Look, "this is news for nerds", not "hangout for freaks".
  Go back where you came from!
  
  --
  The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
9. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by tigersha · 2015-09-26 07:18 · Score: 2
  
  Me. I love spreadsheets.
  I was a student in 1988. In my first year I was given the option to do my own project and I volunteered to write a spreadsheet, in DOS, (windows did not exist then) in text mode, in C. Because I wanted to. it was my idea. Because I always wanted to write a spreadsheet. Nice program too, it has the same key commands as Joe/Wordperfect. Still use it occasionally.
  I like databases too.
  
  --
  The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
10. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by vikingpower · 2015-09-26 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  What is this GirlFriend arithmetic you are referring to ?
  
  --
  Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
11. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by radarskiy · 2015-09-26 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  Why aren't you hiding the ribbon when you are not using it.
12. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by mrbester · 2015-09-26 07:58 · Score: 2
  
  Ah, the heady days of the 80s, where even though such things as Lotus 1-2-3 and DBase existed you were encouraged to write your own versions.
  Me, I wrote a GEM replacement in Turbo Pascal that took advantage of the massive resolution and colour space improvements in EGA from CGA to make a far nicer interface.
  Windows did exist then, but was scorchingly expensive. We still don't talk about how bad version 2 was...
  
  --
  "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
13. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 08:29 · Score: 1
  
  Why aren't you hiding the ribbon when you are not using it.
  Most IT people and programmers, like the aforementioned anonymous poster, are not bright enough to RTFM.
  Even Windows 8 wasn't difficult to use for anyone who could be bothered to spend a paltry handful of minutes googling for documentation.
14. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Lisandro · 2015-09-26 10:31 · Score: 1
  
  I love SAP.
  Come on now. Lets no say things we can't take back afterwards.
15. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by jcr · 2015-09-26 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  I love Lotus Improv. To this day, when I have any kind of complex spreadsheet work to do, I fire up a NeXTStation.
  -jcr
  
  --
  The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
16. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by LinuxIsGarbage · 2015-09-26 11:00 · Score: 2
  
  Excel did the job just fine until the ribbon UI came and MS decided that all those useless icons are more worth than the cells in spreadsheet. And since the file-menu started opening the full-screen crap, it was time for me to move on to alternatives which actually are now better than the Excel itself. After ms-office started using only two shades of grey as its UI, many are really forced to move the alternatives, as the UI is really too uncomfortable to use for a day.
  The ribbon in 2007/2010 occupies the same amount of space as the default toolbars in 2003. 2013 does increase the size a bit. However Double-click the tab names, or press Ctrl+F1 and they will collapse down.
  I do think once getting over the initial learning curve, the ribbon is more intuitive than menus/toolbars.
17. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by TechyImmigrant · 2015-09-26 17:02 · Score: 1
  
  GF Arithmetic is Galois Field Arithmetic.
  
  --
  I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
18. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-27 00:45 · Score: 1
  
  I love SAP.
  Then, you sir, are a sap.....
19. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-27 04:51 · Score: 0
  
  Why aren't you hiding the ribbon when you are not using it.
  Most IT people and programmers, like the aforementioned anonymous poster, are not bright enough to RTFM.
  Even Windows 8 wasn't difficult to use for anyone who could be bothered to spend a paltry handful of minutes googling for documentation.
  A shill and an idiot, perhaps both... Hiding stuff doesn't allow you to access the needed features, and RTFM in windows 8 or Excel? The FM is a Fing joke...just like windows 8 is a piece of steaming crap.
20. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-27 04:54 · Score: 0
  
  "by LinuxIsGarbage"... go shoot yourself in the face with a large caliber firearm you worthless pile of marking crap... The ribbon is crap, and you're a Fing liar:
  http://peltiertech.com/wp-content/img200804/XL_2003_2007.png
21. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by petteyg359 · 2015-09-27 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  Documentation of a craptastic interface, no matter how detailed, doesn't change the fact that the interface is craptastic.
22. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by tehlinux · 2015-09-27 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  I also love Excel
  
  --
  Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
23. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by vikingpower · 2015-09-27 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  I had not expected so dryly pedantic an answer at such a question. Slashdot, yeah... <sigh> ( Disclaimer: I do know about GF Arithmetic. )
  
  --
  Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
24. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by TechyImmigrant · 2015-09-27 14:28 · Score: 1
  
  Doing GF arithmetic is probably an effective way of repelling girlfriends.
  
  --
  I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
25. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-27 19:08 · Score: 0
  
  Évariste Galois' attempt at GirlFriend arithmetic didn't work out so well for him. The field he operated on only allowed two elements, and Galois was removed from the equation. But of course he knew that as he had done the math the night before.
26. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-27 19:12 · Score: 0
  
  1+1=0
27. Re:Excel is a bit like SAP by tehcyder · 2015-09-28 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  Have you ever met a person that will say that they love spreadsheets?
  If you say that you have, you are crazy, or they are crazy.
  Anyone who ever had to add up multiple pages of multiple columns of figures with an electronic calculator loves spreadsheets.
  They're like dishwashers or washing machines: they save time and produce better results than doing it by hand.
  Do I love my washing machine? No, but I wouldn't want to get rid of it and go back to chucking rocks at my socks in a bucket.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Current version is just .... so..... slow.... by thegreatbob · 2015-09-26 06:04 · Score: -1, Troll

All current office products (2013) seem to be designed to be horrendously slow. Excel suffers most terribly from all the graphical bloat. Even after disabling the "animations" and "hardware acceleration", it's still a barely-responsive lump on anything that isn't a top-notch workstation/gaming PC. No amount of tweaking seems to be able to fix it, leading me to believe that it is broken by design. Whoever thought that flashy animations should be enabled in a "productivity" suite by default should be condemned to an appropriate level of hell. The lack of benefit from hardware acceleration on low to mid-range hardware (trivial even on higher end stuff) should call into question the competence of many involved.

--
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
1. Re:Current version is just .... so..... slow.... by nuckfuts · 2015-09-26 08:42 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  All current office products (2013)
  Office 2013 is not the current version.
  
  Even after disabling the "animations" and "hardware acceleration"
  You do realize that disabling hardware acceleration makes things slower, right?
  FWIW, I see absolutely zero performance issues on my Windows laptop. Diagnose the performance bottleneck on your machine before you blame the software.
2. Re:Current version is just .... so..... slow.... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 08:49 · Score: 0
  
  Yup. Excel XP (2002) was the peak. The sad part about Excel 2013 is that on startup when the system is already under load you can see that the 2013 UI is a skin on the 2002 UI. There is a brief flash of the old version before the skin is applied. That is the heartbreaking part, the old product is still there under all the crud, languishing in its shame at having to wear this ugly and impractical dress they put on it.
3. Re:Current version is just .... so..... slow.... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 08:51 · Score: 0
  
  Oh and the lack of the old offline searchable help files is demoralising as well. The new "help" sucks so bad by comparison it is almost useless.
4. Re:Current version is just .... so..... slow.... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-27 14:21 · Score: 0
  
  It's lightning fast on an 7-year-old PC. Check your anti-virus, memory use and hardware.
5. Re:Current version is just .... so..... slow.... by bjb · 2015-09-28 00:20 · Score: 1
  
  FWIW, I see absolutely zero performance issues on my Windows laptop. Diagnose the performance bottleneck on your machine before you blame the software.
  
  I used to have a laptop that would take a 3x-5x performance hit when I enabled a high color display mode. The processor was still fast, but if you enabled 32-bit color performance of everything went to crap. If you downgraded your display to 16-bit color, fast as a rocket.
  Sometimes your hardware may say that it supports some feature or another. Doesn't necessarily mean that it is the best thing to turn on...
  
  --
  Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
6. Re:Current version is just .... so..... slow.... by thegreatbob · 2015-10-09 00:16 · Score: -1
  
  I was perhaps too ranty there. On several lower-end machines, I've seen Office suffer terribly until both animations and hardware acceleration are turned off. It would be nice if it benchmarked itself during setup to see if there was actually something to gain from it. After moving to a much faster laptop (i7-2670qm vs A6-6310, and their respective integrated graphics devices), I see no continuing issues that aren't just caused by some broken spreadsheets. Not sure how the truly latest version of Office performs, as I'm stuck using Office 2013 via Office365 at work. I'll shush now.
  
  --
  There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Visicalc was world-changing... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:09 · Score: 4, Interesting

Lotus 1-2-3 was pretty cool, and Excel excels at novel ways to silently corrupt my data. :-(
1. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:19 · Score: 0
  
  Where are mod points where you need them! :-(
2. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by HyperQuantum · 2015-09-26 06:37 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Yes. Don't ever let Excel touch your csv files. For example, if you open a csv file with Excel and then save it again, it will have converted cells containing (large) numeric IDs to scientific notation. Without asking. Bye, data.
  
  --
  I am not really here right now.
3. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  There is a simple workaround for this - rename the file from .csv to .csx
  When you open it, Excel will start with the file import wizard where you can tell it to delimit with commas and finally import your 45-character zero-padded serial numbers as text.
  Now the import wizard could certainly use some work. I think it's the same now as it was in Office 2000!
4. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by Deep+Esophagus · 2015-09-26 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  Same with dBase (.dbf) files. Sometimes the customers who used our database programs discovered that they could browse the data in Excel, and if they tried to save changes... {shudder} good-bye, data.
5. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 08:59 · Score: 0
  
  This happened to me two days ago with an all-numeric MAC address! wtf moment.
6. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by Kjella · 2015-09-26 09:14 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Yes. Don't ever let Excel touch your csv files. For example, if you open a csv file with Excel and then save it again, it will have converted cells containing (large) numeric IDs to scientific notation. Without asking. Bye, data.
  Converting "JAN10" and "MAR10" to dates was also pretty creative, changing like 5 entries in a list of many thousand codes. Silent, subtle data corruption is so fun. At least with the scientific notation it's pretty obvious your data has been fucked.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
7. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by stridebird · 2015-09-26 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  Excel also likes to helpfully convert a telephone number to a date...sigh.
8. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by Tablizer · 2015-09-26 18:37 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I also failed when I tried to convert phone numbers into dates. Rejection sucks.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
9. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by jeremyp · 2015-09-27 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  You're upset that Excel treats something that looks like a number as a number instead of reading your mind.
  Put your serial numbers (which aren't really numbers, they are strings containing only digits) in quotes.
  
  --
  All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
10. Re:Visicalc was world-changing... by HyperQuantum · 2015-09-27 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  It actually was a csv file with all fields surrounded by quotes. Even the numbers. That said, the contents of that file were not provided by myself but by a third party, and the file was apparently opened in Excel by my employer's customers, who were supposed to let our software read the file.
  
  --
  I am not really here right now.
pet peeve-excel spreadsheet as text form document by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:14 · Score: 0

Otherwise the best of all the MS office suite
A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by CronoCloud · 2015-09-26 06:25 · Score: 1, Funny

quoted from the summary:
[quote]the RSVP sheet for this weekend's party was an Excel Online document.[/quote]
And THIS is the problem with spreadsheets, people are using them for columnar text formatting, for lists and the like, and NOT calculations. If they wanted an RSVP list there's @#$@#$ iCal/Webcal/Google Calendar
1. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 07:28 · Score: 0
  
  If you're mad that the Excel team sent out an Excel document as an RSVP list, I'm not even going to hint at what the Word team did...
2. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2015-09-26 08:01 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  The original Microsoft Access team used an Access database to coordinate a celebration of their most recent anniversary. Unfortunately two people tried to save changes simultaneously, the file got corrupted and the entire team hasn't been heard from since.
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
3. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by AthanasiusKircher · 2015-09-26 09:49 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  And THIS is the problem with spreadsheets, people are using them for columnar text formatting, for lists and the like, and NOT calculations.
  Uh, spreadsheets aren't just for calculations, and they never have been. They're for any kind of data storage or manipulation which could benefit from organization into columns and rows. That includes things like lists of records with text fields (like names) that might benefit from data manipulation (like sorting alphabetically or whatever).
  In case you don't realize this, spreadsheets derive from accounting ledgers, which similarly held RECORDS. Calculations was one thing they could be used for, such as keeping a running tab on an account balance or whatever. But they also often were a place to consolidate various information, such as invoice lists of names, addresses, other customer data, etc.
  Keeping a list of attendees for a party seems like a fine usage for a spreadsheet. Sure, a dedicated calendar app might have more specific functionality, but only if you want those functions. If all is needed is a place to store data in an organized fashion, why NOT a spreadsheet?
  (And before you start complaining about how modern Excel is a bloated piece of crap, I'll happily agree with you -- but the ability to format text and column cells is important even if you want to do the most basic reporting with data involving calculations. So, you can hardly dispense with most of that and still end up with an application that anyone would want to use. People adopted spreadsheets because they could store data conveniently in a useful format -- if all they wanted was calculations, they could have just used a calculator or adding machine.)
4. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by zennyboy · 2015-09-26 14:49 · Score: 1
  
  Dunno how you got Insightful, but you were certainly Funny!
5. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by LynnwoodRooster · 2015-09-26 18:28 · Score: 1
  
  Not a mod right now (no points), but for something that's mildly amusing, I give a "+1 Funny". For something REALLY funny I give a "+1 Insightful" so that some karma is earned.
  
  --
  Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
6. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 22:45 · Score: 0
  
  sorry man, accounting ledgers are double entry, spreadsheets are not. they are planning tools, not accounting tools at heart
7. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by AthanasiusKircher · 2015-09-27 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  sorry man, accounting ledgers are double entry, spreadsheets are not. they are planning tools, not accounting tools at heart
  What the heck are you talking about? Your post shows a great ignorance of classical accounting, as well as spreadsheets (which, by the way, historically ARE derived from accounting books, despite what you may think).
  Anyhow, a few other points to note:
  -- Old-school paper double-entry accounting often uses plenty of single-entry books as well, often known as journals or daybooks (though informally they are often called "ledgers" too). They are essential bookkeeping records as well.
  -- It's a trivial exercise to set up a computer spreadsheet to do double-entry accounting, either using multiple sheets or the same sheet. If you can't figure out how to do that, you don't know how to use a spreadsheet -- like someone who thinks a teacher needs a dedicated "grading software" program to calculate averages or curves or "drop the lowest grade."
  -- Early computerized spreadsheets were designed to imitate traditional accounting ledgers and other books organized in tabular format. They were deliberately made in a very general format that could be modified to imitate any of a number of tradition record-keeping books.
  -- You are at least somewhat correct that early on people realized their usefulness for planning and projection purposes as well -- but those sorts of tasks (budgeting, etc.) were traditionally done in tabular form as well... it's just that paper books didn't have the flexibility to instantly recompute.
  --Any business who actually needs the complexity of double-entry accounting today generally uses dedicated accounting software. That's true. But it's not because one couldn't set up a spreadsheet to do most tasks. It certainly would be an easier task than setting up and manually recording numbers in physical record books a couple generations ago. But dedicated accounting software comes with pre-packaged solutions and databases with better record-handling than simple spreadsheets.
  -- Lastly, if you doubt that spreadsheets could be used for double-entry accounting, you can do a quick internet search and find a number of solutions designed to load directly in Excel that do precisely that.
8. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by derinax · 2015-09-27 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  I was at one of the early Office launches, 1997 or so (not for fun, I was an MS conference tech). One of the things that lodged in my head was the presentation from the Excel project lead and the implied competition between the Office apps. He said he had heard about all the great advances Word had made for text formatting and presentation for this release, and he exclaimed that "we have Word's functionality inside each and every cell!"
  So no, even from the earliest, and as far as MS was concerned, spreadsheets were not primarily calculators but a way to present tabulated data.
9. Re:A spreadsheet for an RSVP list? by tomatoguy · 2015-09-27 15:41 · Score: 1
  
  Spreadsheets are one of my favourite tools. To me, no matter whether it was SC, or 1-2-3, or Excel, or LibreCalc, a spreadsheet is a "rubbery grid", which I mostly use for calculating things, but also for formatting things in blocks, and even making things like logos and graphics. My 1st business cards were made in Lotus 1-2-3 with Allways. I recently rebuilt all the logos for my website in LibreCalc.
  It's not the machine - it's the machinist.
Excel still assumes you're entering text... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:34 · Score: 0, Informative

instead of numbers! It sucks to type "123+456" and the output is simply the string. Why assume a *spreadsheet* is used for text if you enter numbers?
1. Re: Excel still assumes you're entering text... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:42 · Score: 1
  
  I remember in about 1988 when Excel was released for Windows that they said that was going to be fixed. I guess they realized most people use it as a word processor rather than as a spreadsheet. I know the vast majority of spreadsheets my organization creates doesn't contain any calculations.
2. Re:Excel still assumes you're entering text... by TechyImmigrant · 2015-09-26 06:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It's been the convention to mark an arithmetic expression with = since Visicalc. Visicalc is older than many Slashdotters.
  
  --
  I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
3. Re: Excel still assumes you're entering text... by tigersha · 2015-09-26 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  Excel actually included a run-time version of windows at the time.
  
  --
  The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
4. Re:Excel still assumes you're entering text... by Kjella · 2015-09-26 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  Excel still assumes you're entering text instead of numbers! It sucks to type "123+456" and the output is simply the string. Why assume a *spreadsheet* is used for text if you enter numbers?
  It's not the spreadsheet way, you put 123 in one cell, 456 in a second cell and the formula in a third. If you just want the answer you might as well use the calculator. Also it's definitively not interpreted as text, if you've ever exported codes with leading zeroes you'd know that. It's Excel's attempt at being automagic, personally I wish they'd just use the text as-is and had a magic wand icon to try auto-interpreting everything.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
5. Re:Excel still assumes you're entering text... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 10:38 · Score: 0
  
  Ah Visicalc, my very first application. And on a CP/M machine at adult school...in 1984 which means it certainly is older than most Slashdotters
  As am I...
6. Re:Excel still assumes you're entering text... by KGIII · 2015-09-26 14:12 · Score: 1
  
  Well, nobody was staying on topic anyhow and we never do so...
  It's just an observation and I may be mistaken. I never did see the results of the poll /. did to find out the user's ages, genders, etc... They should release that information. It would be a few years old by now. Anyhow, I think you may be mistaken? 31 years ago, 1984, would be right around the time that I am guessing many of us were born. I think the user age here is probably a bit higher than that, as an average, and would expect it to be in the 35 to 45 range as the average. Personally, I'm 57 and was born in '57. (I only get to say this for a year, allow me my trivial enjoyments.) You're obviously older than some others and will help to change the average. I also know that there are a number of others who are older than myself from a number of conversations here.
  That said, I'd really have liked to seen the results of their survey. I don't recall them releasing it and I paid attention for a while afterwards. I must, also, confess that I did not submit my information to said survey. I am far too lazy for that. I am not certain but it seems that a number of us are pretty old compared to a number of other sites that I frequent.
  
  --
  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
7. Re:Excel still assumes you're entering text... by tlhIngan · 2015-09-26 21:44 · Score: 2
  
  Excel still assumes you're entering text instead of numbers! It sucks to type "123+456" and the output is simply the string. Why assume a *spreadsheet* is used for text if you enter numbers?
  It's not the spreadsheet way, you put 123 in one cell, 456 in a second cell and the formula in a third. If you just want the answer you might as well use the calculator. Also it's definitively not interpreted as text, if you've ever exported codes with leading zeroes you'd know that. It's Excel's attempt at being automagic, personally I wish they'd just use the text as-is and had a magic wand icon to try auto-interpreting everything.
  I don't know about that - perhaps a cell I need to do a quick one-off calculation just because of the way the data is presented.
  Of course, I know how to use spreadsheets, so 123+456 means I enter "=123+456" to turn it into a formula and have the spreadsheet do the calculation for me.
  I came to this when I needed to do one-off calculations in a cell of two constants - basically the total amount of money, minus ONE of the two taxes paid on it. I needed to calculate it, and I could whip out the calculator, but it seemed stupid to do so when I was already using what was a pretty powerful calculator already. The rest of it was a spreadsheet so it made sense to not whip out the OS calculator and do my calculation, then copy the result into the spreadsheet, but just have the spreadsheet do it for me. It was already calculating other stuff anyhow.
  Anyhow, I suppose Excel was probably better on Mac - to get around the 640K limit you had all sorts of tricks playing around with EMS in DOS. After all, the LIM team to get around the 640k limit was composed of engineers from Lotus, Intel and Microsoft. Once Windows happened with flat memory, such nasty hacks could be eliminated.
8. Re:Excel still assumes you're entering text... by tehcyder · 2015-09-28 03:36 · Score: 1
  
  It's been the convention to mark an arithmetic expression with = since Visicalc. Visicalc is older than many Slashdotters.
  Exactly, it's a piece of software not a magical mind reader. People on here keep complaining about Excel not saving long numbers properly, but that's because you need to tell it you want "123456789012345678901234567890.6666666" to be text and not a number (by putting it in quotation marks) Spreadsheets will assume that something in numerical form is a number, just like they will assume +2+3 is a formula and calculate it as 5 unless you type "+2+3"
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
30 years in and cut still doesn't work properly! by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:44 · Score: 0

My old college roommate was a program manager for Excel from 1992 until about 1996, and he said they were working on that. It still hasn't been fixed so it works like every other Windows program.
Re: 30 years in and cut still doesn't work properl by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:48 · Score: 0

That drives me nuts. As an old habit I cut blocks instead of simply hitting delete to keep a backup just in case. Cutting in Excel doesn't actually cut!
Re: 30 years in and cut still doesn't work proper by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 06:56 · Score: 0

And if you paste into another program, what you cut from Excel is not deleted! I almost got fired a few years ago when I accidentally left in notes in a spreadsheet that was sent to a customer. I didn't notice that when I cut them and pasted them into JIRA that they were still in Excel.
You iBnsensitive clod? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 07:54 · Score: -1

Become an unwanted with procees and Parts. The current BIG PICTURE. WHAT recent article put FreeBSD Went out a BSD box (a PIII
Absolutely by JcMorin · 2015-09-26 07:58 · Score: 2

use machine floating point
Yes, I means why not?

for people doing nothing of import
I use it every day to cumulate sales, hours, "normal" calculation such as adding number, date, multiplication and division between rows. Do I qualify as non-import task?
1. Re:Absolutely by Ol+Olsoc · 2015-09-26 08:04 · Score: 1
  
  I use it every day to cumulate sales, hours, "normal" calculation such as adding number, date, multiplication and division between rows. Do I qualify as non-import task?
  Yes.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
2. Re:Absolutely by tehcyder · 2015-09-28 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  I use it every day to cumulate sales, hours, "normal" calculation such as adding number, date, multiplication and division between rows. Do I qualify as non-import task?
  Yes.
  You should bottle your smug and sell it.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
3. Re:Absolutely by Ol+Olsoc · 2015-09-28 04:05 · Score: 1
  
  I use it every day to cumulate sales, hours, "normal" calculation such as adding number, date, multiplication and division between rows. Do I qualify as non-import task?
  Yes.
  You should bottle your smug and sell it.
  So what you are saying is that the idea of using imprecise calculations is a good thing? AC is correct, it is the right hand of PowerPoint.
  I do bottle my smug - it's an irresistable attractant to people like yourself. It's called "Yes".
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
VBA Anonomys by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 08:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

I admit it. I like Exel. I especially like VBA. Why on earth would I like VBA you ask?
I spent a long time working in a department highly reliant on statistics calculated from a lot of data. Many many tables of data used to generate and analyze other data. Working for a daily cheap company, MS office was all we were given to do the job.
We were not permitted to write custom apps or to install other software. The only sort of programmability we had was VBA. Some of the things we built too processes from being multi-day work to a matter of minutes letting VBA automate the tasks.
If you're not in a position where you can have a custom app developed to handle and calculate/manipulate large amounts of data, automating calculations already stored in spreadsheets is a life saver...
30 years and the same annoyances by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 08:22 · Score: 0

In all that time, Excel STILL rounds up large number and converts other numbers into exponentials when you paste them in.
Who on earth wants to paste a bunch of numbers in and have them automatically rounded up, as an option, fine, but automatically!
Equally WTF wants to use exponentials BY DEFAULT.
God I hate excel so much.
1. Re:30 years and the same annoyances by Alien1024 · 2015-09-26 17:25 · Score: 1
  
  One way to prevent Excel from automagically guessing how it should treat the pasted data is to set the destination's cells format to "Text" before pasting (rather than the default "General"). Then, after pasting the data, some manual formatting is necessary, but at least you won't get unwanted roundings, nonsensical string-to-date conversions, scientific notations, etc.
2. Re:30 years and the same annoyances by Alien1024 · 2015-09-26 17:34 · Score: 1
  
  And... a minor clarification:
  
  One way to prevent Excel from automagically guessing how it should treat the pasted data is to set the destination's cells format to "Text" before pasting (rather than the default "General")
  ...and paste using the "match destination formatting" option.
We certainly ripped some stuff off? by nickweller · 2015-09-26 08:58 · Score: 1, Offtopic

They succeeded by ripped stuff mostly from Lotus, and creating undocumentated APIs that would give Excel an advantage under Windows and giving MS developers preferential access to OCX APIs and paying people to destroy their Lotus 123 System Disks :)
Screenshot for the curious by fatalbert1 · 2015-09-26 09:19 · Score: 1

Here is a screenshot of v1.01 in 1985 on Mac:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2429/3635573389_7a34b231a2_o.jpg
I could not find a DOS screenshot, but would welcome one)
It is remarkably similar looking today, 30 years later.
1. Re:Screenshot for the curious by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 10:53 · Score: 0
  
  We used it on the first Fat Mac in 1984, there was no DOS version at the time
  It was great for estimates, we'd reserve the first column for the date and do a floating sort to keep track
  Then we went through the numerous databases to do it right and finally Nashoba Systems came through with Filemaker
2. Re:Screenshot for the curious by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-27 01:03 · Score: 0
  
  There was never a "DOS version". The first PC version of Excel (v2.0) came out in 1987 and included a run-time copy of Windows.
  Here's an image: https://winworldpc.com/res/img/screenshots/-7b6db3381740c4c4cbe6950431eb2c33-Microsoft%20Excel%202.0%20-%20About.png.
3. Re: Screenshot for the curious by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-27 05:15 · Score: 0
  
  Both interfaces are clean and clear. God I miss those days. :(
  It's like nobody after 1995 took any computer human interaction courses.
And still not better than Visicalc. by dsmatthews9379 · 2015-09-26 09:34 · Score: 2

http://www.bricklin.com/firsts...
http://museum.syssrc.com/artif...
1. Re:And still not better than Visicalc. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 14:26 · Score: 1
  
  spreadsheet calculator (sc) is still available!
Excel? by VAXcat · 2015-09-26 09:34 · Score: 1, Insightful

Got no interest in it. Spreadsheets are something that a user would use.

--
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
1. Re:Excel? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 10:53 · Score: 0
  
  I used to think this way, too, until I had to use Excel for my job. Don't forget that those users are your customers. They might be "internal" customers (i.e. they don't pay you directly) but I know from experience that they'll be forever grateful if you're able to help them. If you've enjoyed any kind of programming, you'll find Excel formulas really easy to learn. Try it out. It doesn't hurt that much and you might actually enjoy it.
2. Re:Excel? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 12:18 · Score: 0
  
  What are you, a program in Tron?
MultiFinder had a workaround for Excel 1.x by yuhong · 2015-09-26 11:23 · Score: 1

MultiFinder had a workaround for Excel 1.x where it had to be loaded below the 1MB line.
1. Re:MultiFinder had a workaround for Excel 1.x by Megane · 2015-09-27 01:58 · Score: 1
  
  The problem was that Excel 1.0 was written using a bytecode virtual machine that for some really stupid reason used 8086-style segment/offset pointers referring to absolute host memory addresses... on a system with 32-bit registers and linear addressing space. It was a really big WTF.
  I seem to also recall that either Excel 1.0 for Mac or Word 1.0 for Mac was the first to have the key shortcut Command-W = close window. Millions of people have been accidentally quitting apps when trying to close windows ever since. (Back in the day I preferred Command-K for that function.)
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
30 years of ripping others off by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 14:49 · Score: 0

Wow thirty years since MS ripped off VisiCalc.
Programming for the masses by Tablizer · 2015-09-26 17:26 · Score: 1

Lotus 1-2-3 turned lots of accountants into programmers. Basically it used the menu keyboard patterns as commands (mostly pre-mouse days) so that one pretty much just made a list of keyboard sequences they already knew as a "program". Add an IF function and Go-to cell coordinates, and you have a Turing Complete language.
It was the closest we actually ever came to "programming for the masses". (Of course, it was spaghetti code only its mother could love.)
Excel's programming language is awkward even for programmers.

--
Table-ized A.I.
Data analysis in Excel? by lastman71 · 2015-09-26 17:45 · Score: 1

Maybe not... http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~wk... http://www.phusewiki.org/docs/...
Millenials before the millenium by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 19:27 · Score: 0

but ended up coming back and finishing the project after an ill-fated stint as a farm worker in the lettuce fields of California
This proves that there were millennials even before the millennium. Applying labels to new generations of troublemakers must be the favourite past time of the appearance driven people.
Because by thegarbz · 2015-09-26 20:47 · Score: 2

Why assume a *spreadsheet* is used for text if you enter numbers?
Simple, spreadsheets are used primarily for entering data. The amount of data manually entered into spreadsheets is orders of magnitude more than the amount of formulas or code. The whole point of a spreadsheet is not to calculate 123+456, it's to calculate what's every value in column A + every value in column B and put the answer in column C. And best of all while the data may need to be manually entered or imported or filled by some database operation, your formula only needs to be entered once.
If you want to add two numbers together the program you're looking for is called "calc"
Excell is more knock-off microsoft garbage by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-26 22:32 · Score: 0

I have no respect for MS, they earned it. Nothing new or inventive, just take another persons idea and run the originator out of business copying that work.
I have seen MUCH better spreadsheets than MS - long ago when the field was more contentious.
MS, never the first, never the best, always marketed with more dollars than any other. *shrugs*
Not impressed.
Ob by Hognoxious · 2015-09-26 23:18 · Score: 1

Better hope there are fewer than 65536 of them and nobody's name is longer than 256 characters.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
NeXTstations by unixisc · 2015-09-27 04:37 · Score: 1

It's still alive? I regret that NeXTstep on HP 9000 or Sun workstations never took off. They would have been so much better than the 68k