R help - Sep 2016 - Off topic, but hopefully not totally irrelevant: on MS Excel and genomics

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/one-five-genetics-papers-contains-errors-thanks-microsoft-excel

Cheers,
Bert


Bert Gunter

"The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along
and sticking things into it."
-- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip )

Over the last few years I came to the conclusion that using a spreadsheet for
anything more complicated than my shopping list was madness.
 I am now reconsidering my position on shopping lists.

Thanks Bert. I have a small collection of spreadsheet errors that have been 
published here and there and this is a great addition.

John Kane
Kingston ON Canada

> -----Original Message-----
> From: bgunter.4567 at gmail.com
> Sent: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 08:09:46 -0700
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] Off topic, but hopefully not totally irrelevant: on MS Excel
> and genomics
> 
>
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/one-five-genetics-papers-contains-errors-thanks-microsoft-excel
> 
> Cheers,
> Bert
> 
> 
> Bert Gunter
> 
> "The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along
> and sticking things into it."
> -- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip
)
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
____________________________________________________________
FREE 3D MARINE AQUARIUM SCREENSAVER - Watch dolphins, sharks & orcas on your
desktop!

On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 9:10 AM, John Kane <jrkrideau at inbox.com> wrote:
> Over the last few years I came to the conclusion that using a spreadsheet
> for anything more complicated than my shopping list was madness.
>  I am now reconsidering my position on shopping lists.
>
?I got a real laugh out of that one! When used for the purpose of their
ancestors, they are an excellent tool. A screwdriver is an excellent tool.
But you can't use it alone to build a submarine.
https://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2002/cmsc434-0101/MUIseum/applications/spreadsheethistory1.html
?


>
> Thanks Bert. I have a small collection of spreadsheet errors that have
> been  published here and there and this is a great addition.
>
> John Kane
> Kingston ON Canada
>

-- 
Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it
once. -- Karl Lehenbauer
Unicode: http://xkcd.com/1726/

Maranatha! <><
John McKown

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On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 at 00:13 John Kane <jrkrideau at inbox.com> wrote:
> Over the last few years I came to the conclusion that using a spreadsheet
> for anything more complicated than my shopping list was madness.
>  I am now reconsidering my position on shopping lists.
>
> Thanks Bert. I have a small collection of spreadsheet errors that have
> been  published here and there and this is a great addition.
>
>
Yes, thanks Bert - I'm a bit surprised it go that far! When I saw (in 2003)
that Excel auto-mangled dates with no way to undo it - even if I'd
accidentally opened a CSV - that was it. I still shop with a scribbled
scrap of paper that I usually lose before I need it.

We still need spreadsheets though (IMO) and this looks promising:

http://comma-chameleon.io/

Also Jenny Bryan's wonderful work in this area deserves attention:

https://github.com/rsheets

I think dplyr-via-RSQLite linked SQLite back-end with a DT flexdashboards
front-end would be a useful project for R. (Just in case someone's looking
for something to do, all the pieces are there.)

Cheers, Mike.

John Kane
> Kingston ON Canada
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: bgunter.4567 at gmail.com
> > Sent: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 08:09:46 -0700
> > To: r-help at r-project.org
> > Subject: [R] Off topic, but hopefully not totally irrelevant: on MS
Excel
> > and genomics
> >
> >
>
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/one-five-genetics-papers-contains-errors-thanks-microsoft-excel
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Bert
> >
> >
> > Bert Gunter
> >
> > "The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming
along
> > and sticking things into it."
> > -- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic
strip )
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> FREE 3D MARINE AQUARIUM SCREENSAVER - Watch dolphins, sharks & orcas on
> your desktop!
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
-- 
Dr. Michael Sumner
Software and Database Engineer
Australian Antarctic Division
203 Channel Highway
Kingston Tasmania 7050 Australia

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