Powerpoint creator Dennis Austin dead at 76

[Murgatroyd]

I always liked this presentation: Irregular Webcomic! #240

[atteSmythe]

Google Sheets is slow, but its killer feature is open ranges. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to go back to Excel.

Sheets’ database-like functions are also markedly better, and I’ll take ecmascript over VB any day for scripting. Excel is powerful and fast (so fast), but it’s really starting to be dated.

[gilgongo]

@anothernewbbaccount

a function of nobody being able to read at any length and grasp detail any more

Miro and related “whiteboard” systems take that to the next level though. At least Powerpoint is linear and weakly encourages structure. Miro does no such thing. At all. Somebody at work sent me a board they had made to “introduce” me to a new project they were on. After looking at it fruitlessly, I messaged them back saying sorry but could I have a plain written problem statement, proposed solutions and next steps or I’d fucking punch them in the mouth (OK didn’t say that last bit but holy hell, did I think it).

[atteSmythe]

Most requests can be made in a five sentence email:
Describe the current state and why we’re changing it. Convey the high level intended outcome. List constraints that limit the solution space. Include any potential solutions that have already been excluded. Suggest 1-3 areas for research.

Those may need to be five short 1-3 sentence paragraphs. Anything more complicated should be conveyed in real-time, imo.

[Gyrofrog]

@Faffenreffer

my unseemly enthusiasm for spreadsheets

"The Vim Clutch": a footpedal for the code-editor Vim

I’m just reminded that, for lack of word processing software, I used to type school papers, stories, etc. in Multiplan on a DECmate II. We’d format the page for (I think) 8 columns, then enter text one line at a time, being mindful not to type past an approximate point that might exceed the eighth column’s width. Also, double-quotes weren’t allowed – instead I’d use two single-quotes. Later on (1987) we got hold of a Commodore 64 (fairly old even by then), and I used that version of Multiplan…

[cannibalpeas]

@atteSmythe

Google Sheets is slow, but its killer feature is open ranges

I’m not sure I know what that means, exactly. I’m definitely not a “power user”, so there are definitely some functions I don’t need to access and am ignorant of.

[atteSmythe]

In excel, you can use a range like A:A to reference a whole column. In Sheets, you can use something like A3:A to reference everything from A3 to the end of the column.

It gets really useful when combining it with query results or externally updated data, when you don’t know what the length is. Combine that with more powerful array functions, and you can do something like
=arrayformula(if A2:A=“”,xlookup(a2:a,Sheet7!B:B,Sheet7!G:G)))

And get your result for all of column A, excluding the header in A1 and all blank lines. Now A2 can have a formula pulling the data you need from elsewhere and the rest of the sheet fills in.

It’s tough to see the utility from a simple example, but in short it really lets the tool be used as a UI framework for data visualization, dashboards, statistics, etc.

[cannibalpeas]

Aha, yeah that’s neat. Most of the spreadsheets I write aren’t externally linked and have finite ranges, but I’ve also been sent absolutely massive ones with external dependents and wouldn’t be surprised if this was utilized. Thanks for the explainer.

[atteSmythe]

My pleasure. I’ve spent the last few years building dashboards for process control and to let users query data in our ERP system via SQL without having to buy expensive extra seats for the clunky UI. It’s made me a Sheets evangelist, being able to build these tools for free (as we’re already a Google apps shop). I’ll be the first to admit that Excel is 100x faster, though. I really wish there were a native-compiled, locally-run alternative for Sheets!

[NukeML]

Since this has become a topic about Excel vs PowerPoint, ye should subscribe to this channel

Leila Gharani

[Doctor_Faustus]

I’m sure she does great work (just saw a video called “Python in Excel” which is exciting for me, because I don’t know any VBA), but I’m going to link my previous comment here (which was also a reply to you, funnily enough…)

Twitter's decline: gradual, then sudden

I will never understand how anyone could prefer a video tutorial over text, especially for something like programming. Having to scrub through a video instead of skimming a text seems like a nightmare to me. But to each their own, and this is definitely one of those things that remind me that I’m not considered young anymore.

[Bonivus_elderheart]

@atteSmythe

I’ve spent the last few years building dashboards for process control and to let users query data in our ERP system via SQL without having to buy expensive extra seats for the clunky UI

Some of our analytical accountants use excel docs that require the 64 bit version of the app and 8 GB of free memory, because they reference many external databases, slice, dice, and mangle the data from those databases, and put the results in many worksheets (like, one for each department, IIRC) It’s a monstrous beast of a document, and I’m so very glad that I don’t have to troubleshoot it.

(Although I think we might have ended up ditching it for PowerBI or something; I’ve slept since them.)

[MrShiv]

ETA: better image that includes credit

[MrShiv]

Excel can be used perverted to make maps:

[Faffenreffer]

Those are gorgeous! What did you use for data sets?

[MrShiv]

Just a simple list of U.S. counties and county equivalents, with “internal points” (latitude, longitude) from the US Census Bureau’s geography division.

ETA for the first map (the most recognizable one), I made seven series using different states, then tinkered with the states in each series to get nice color contrast between neighboring states.

For the second and third, radar charts!