Microsoft Excel

[CtrlAltDel]

According to Excel, the time between 12:42:02pm and 12:42:06pm yesterday is equal to 12:00:04 AM on January 0th, 1900.

Took like 30 minutes of texting people and hunting around the various options to figure how to resolve that one. Apparently you have to change the format to "General" (not an easy setting to find) and then multiply by 86400 because it gives you a number in hours as default.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. In Excel, times are stored internally as fractions of a day. So, 12:42:02 pm is 0.529189814814815 and 12:42:06 pm is 0.529236111111111, while 12:00:04 am is 0.000046296296296. Now, there is some error involved here, since the fractions will only rarely be exact, but it won't be off by 12 hours.

The "time between 12:42:02pm and 12:42:06pm" is 4 seconds, which corresponds to 4 seconds after midnight as if it can't tell a time from a duration.

Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, that's just a display issue. If you set the number format to [hh]:mm:ss or [mm]:ss, it'll show up right. Or multiply it by 86,400 to get the seconds as an integer, as mentioned above.

[kphoger]

And of course, there are 525,600 minutes in a nonleap year.

How can you measure the life of a woman or a man?

[kkt]

And of course, there are 525,600 minutes in a nonleap year.

How can you measure the life of a woman or a man?

I love Rent!  A high school in my city put it on about six years ago.  I don't know how a high school got permission to put on a show with such adult themes, but they did a great job.  Enthusiasm more than made up for lack of experience.

[Rothman]

Can't stand that song.  Overplayed and had to hear it sung by far too many school choirs.

[SSOWorld]

=IF(OR(Y1221="YES",AND(K1221=K1220,X1221=X1220)),"REMOVE","PAY")

The equivalent Perl would be:

Code Select Expand


if ( ($k1221 eq $k1220 and $x1221 eq $x1220) or ($y1221 eq "YES") )
{
    print "REMOVE";
}
else
{
    print "PAY";
}


There's still a little bit of parenthesis nastiness, but I think that's going to happen no matter what just because of the nature of the comparison you're making.

"eq" does a string comparison (i.e. it compares non-numerical data). If you were comparing numbers, you'd use "==" instead. (Most newer languages just have "==" handle both types of comparison.)

I find it a lot easier to understand what Perl is doing there. But of course the tricky part isn't getting Perl to do the comparison, it's getting the data into Perl to get to where you can do the comparison.

I feel like the best of both worlds would be a spreadsheet program that let you run code in a small programming language in each cell, rather than using Excel-style formulas. But then again most programmers would rather just write a script than faff about with a spreadsheet at all, so that's a cool idea that will probably never happen.

I finally ran into a scenario on a test case I'm writing where I'd like to have more customization and ended up switching to Typescript (JavaScript with a type checking layer)

[Scott5114]

JavaScript? [shudder]

I have to do JavaScript for work every now and again and it never fails to parse something in a completely stupid way that keeps me from doing what I want. Of course, this is browser-based JS, so maybe the version you're using is less insane.

[SSOWorld]

JavaScript? [shudder]

I have to do JavaScript for work every now and again and it never fails to parse something in a completely stupid way that keeps me from doing what I want. Of course, this is browser-based JS, so maybe the version you're using is less insane.

Node.js

[Scott5114]

JavaScript? [shudder]

I have to do JavaScript for work every now and again and it never fails to parse something in a completely stupid way that keeps me from doing what I want. Of course, this is browser-based JS, so maybe the version you're using is less insane.

Node.js

Interesting. For someone with only passing familiarity with JavaScript, does it provide much benefit over other standalone interpreted languages like Python, Perl, Lua, etc.?

[SSOWorld]

JavaScript? [shudder]

I have to do JavaScript for work every now and again and it never fails to parse something in a completely stupid way that keeps me from doing what I want. Of course, this is browser-based JS, so maybe the version you're using is less insane.

Node.js

Interesting. For someone with only passing familiarity with JavaScript, does it provide much benefit over other standalone interpreted languages like Python, Perl, Lua, etc.?

Not completely. Python and perl provide easier interfaces IMO, but Perl is a legacy language and Python, well, it's python.

[kalvado]

JavaScript? [shudder]

I have to do JavaScript for work every now and again and it never fails to parse something in a completely stupid way that keeps me from doing what I want. Of course, this is browser-based JS, so maybe the version you're using is less insane.

Node.js

Interesting. For someone with only passing familiarity with JavaScript, does it provide much benefit over other standalone interpreted languages like Python, Perl, Lua, etc.?

Not completely. Python and perl provide easier interfaces IMO, but Perl is a legacy language and Python, well, it's python.

Looks like there are few packages, with different pricing models, which should allow python and excel integration. I may play with that a bit later

[Scott5114]

JavaScript? [shudder]

I have to do JavaScript for work every now and again and it never fails to parse something in a completely stupid way that keeps me from doing what I want. Of course, this is browser-based JS, so maybe the version you're using is less insane.

Node.js

Interesting. For someone with only passing familiarity with JavaScript, does it provide much benefit over other standalone interpreted languages like Python, Perl, Lua, etc.?

Not completely. Python and perl provide easier interfaces IMO, but Perl is a legacy language and Python, well, it's python.

Perl is only a legacy language on Windows. On Linux, it's still very much alive (although C is still the lingua franca, naturally). There's really not anything you can do with Python that you can't do with Perl, unless you're relying on a library that some jerk insists on only releasing for Python or whatever. (GUI programming is a bit sketchier in Perl than it is Python, but Python is still sketchy compared to C++, so if that's what you're doing you probably should just bite the bullet and do C++.)

Also, my boss knows Perl and not Python, so if I get stuck I can ask him for help

[SSOWorld]

Also, my boss knows Perl and not Python, so if I get stuck I can ask him for help

Stack Overflow can help too

[kurumi]

Perl is only a legacy language on Windows. On Linux, it's still very much alive (although C is still the lingua franca, naturally). There's really not anything you can do with Python that you can't do with Perl, unless you're relying on a library that some jerk insists on only releasing for Python or whatever.

I was originally a Perl guy, and still prefer the way it handles regexes, but: there are a lot of "jerks" in machine learning (Pandas, Numpy, PyTorch, sklearn, pyspark, ...)

[kphoger]

Hey, what do you guys think of Aptos, Microsoft's new default font?

[JayhawkCO]

Hey, what do you guys think of Aptos, Microsoft's new default font?

It's no Comic Sans.

[kphoger]

Hey, what do you guys think of Aptos, Microsoft's new default font?

It's no Comic Sans.

If you heat up a frozen burrito in the microwave, bring it back to your desk, cut into the middle with a knife, and the filling squirts all over your monitor—then that bean splatter will certainly end up looking better than Comic Sans.

So, other than that . . . is Aptos a good or bad font?  I'm still deciding.

[JayhawkCO]

Hey, what do you guys think of Aptos, Microsoft's new default font?

It's no Comic Sans.

If you heat up a frozen burrito in the microwave, bring it back to your desk, cut into the middle with a knife, and the filling squirts all over your monitor—then that bean splatter will certainly end up looking better than Comic Sans.

So, other than that . . . is Aptos a good or bad font?  I'm still deciding.

I'm not picky when it comes to straight forward fonts.

[J N Winkler]

Hey, what do you guys think of Aptos, Microsoft's new default font?

I had to look it up in Wikipedia, since the latest versions of Office I use still have Times New Roman as the default, at least for Word.  I'm not impressed, but then I was not thrilled with Calibri, either.  I greatly prefer serif type for sustained screen reading, and my tastes within that category are fairly conservative--for example, I have Baskerville rather than Bookerly set as the default on the Kindle app for my tablet, which is my ebook workhorse.

[kalvado]

Hey, what do you guys think of Aptos, Microsoft's new default font?

They should have used ClearView!

But a change for the sake of change is certainly something MS would happily go for.

[CtrlAltDel]

Hey, what do you guys think of Aptos, Microsoft's new default font?

All five of the new fonts they've recently introduced (note that Bierstadt was renamed Aptos) are pretty bland in my view, although that's probably what they were going for. Of them, I'd say that Seaford is the best.

They're all better than Calibri, though. I never liked the roundedness to the ends of the various strokes, preferring something more rectangular in my sans serifs.

[Hobart]

Hey, what do you guys think of Aptos, Microsoft's new default font?

It's okay as a font but I'm not a huge fan of how it looks; I'll be sticking to the classic Calibri.

What annoys me more is that Outlook on browser defaults to Aptos, but Outlook on desktop defaults to Calibri. I feel inclined to keep fonts consistent regardless of what client I'm using to send email, and defaulting to Aptos makes it more difficult for me to achieve. Either roll it out everywhere, or nowhere; don't slowly phase it in.

I really don't think there was anything wrong with having Times New Roman as the default font anyways, especially in Microsoft Word. Everyone asks for Times New Roman 12 font.

[kphoger]

Aw, hell, they messed with colors too.  Look what happens when I copy from last week's file (left) and paste into a new file (right):



Not a happy camper about this.   



ETA — If anyone else is frustrated by the color change and wants to avoid it when copying-and-pasting, I figured out how to avoid it:

Right-click
Paste Special...
All using Source theme

[Scott5114]

Aptos looks like someone couldn't decide whether they wanted to rip off Roboto or Univers, so they did both. It's better than Calibri, I guess.

I sort of wish that these kinds of programs didn't have a default font at all, and required users to actively choose a font before they could do anything. (Or at least prompt them to choose their own default the first time they use the program.) As it is now, Calibri (and Times New Roman before that) are a marker that someone doesn't know or care how to change the font.

[kalvado]

Aptos looks like someone couldn't decide whether they wanted to rip off Roboto or Univers, so they did both. It's better than Calibri, I guess.

I sort of wish that these kinds of programs didn't have a default font at all, and required users to actively choose a font before they could do anything. (Or at least prompt them to choose their own default the first time they use the program.) As it is now, Calibri (and Times New Roman before that) are a marker that someone doesn't know or care how to change the font.

honestly speaking, in many cases any font (other than comic sans) would work just fine. But changing things randomly on manufacturer (or system admin) side isn't smart - meaning some document features may suddenly change since something now fits where it didn't fit or the other way around.
I understand that MS is out of ideas and is entered a destructive phase, though... just another confirmation.

[Scott5114]

It's a sign that the marketing department is running the show—marketing has a pathological need to change a company's graphical style periodically to keep it "fresh". They don't seem to realize that applying this to things like fonts can negatively impact software usability, though.

I didn't really care for Calibri; its rounded corners made it a bit too informal for my liking, so I don't know that I ever actually used it on a finished document in the rare event I composed a document in that era's Microsoft Office.