this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] badlilbean@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

So what is everyone using instead of excel or libreoffice calc?

[–] Newsteinleo@midwest.social 129 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I got bad news for this guy, his employer is only going to pay for excel and his coworker only knows how to use excel so he better learn to use excel. Also people do a lot of things in excel that have no business being done in excel.

[–] funkyfarmington@lemmy.world 44 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I heard its good for databases...

[–] Gustephan@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I used to maintain an excel database along with an ecosystem of internal engineering tools in excel/vba. I worked in a vault, and one day I asked my isso if I could get python on some of the machines in my lab. A full 1.5 years later they got back to me that some security office was finally ready to consider my request and sent me a bunch of paperwork to fill out to justify why I needed python. And separate copies for each individual library I wanted to come with it. Needless to say I went on continuing to maintain my excel database and toolkit

[–] mEEGal@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

some businesses just deserve to die, and are actively working towards it

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A lot of companies are like this.

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[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago

My high school IT teacher said this outright. He was a FOSS guy, but he said employers will expect MS Office, so we're going to be learning that.

Funnily enough proprietary software is frowned upon in my professional domain. Im not mad though, the excel commands and whatnot still work in libre office spreadsheets.

Unrelatedly, doing statistics in a spreadsheet program sounds like absolute hell.

[–] Safeguard@beehaw.org 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The point is that learning institutions should not prefer one commercial companies solutions vs another.

In fact, they should not use or be dependent on commercial companies at all.

Learning stuff and implementing what you learned should be available for all. Not just people with the money.

Companies know this so they give away their stuff for free to these schools knowing they will contain these people for life.

We need to break out of that extreme vendor lock-in.

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[–] merari42@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

I have coded VBA-based shadow-IT back in the day, but I seriously think this is something that needs to disappear in most firms that still have it. It is typically unmaintable automation of tasks at the department level that is super dependent on who is around and is still often in use after the programmers are long gone. I have seen a few old VBA tools in use that should be done with standard python/R or god forbid even JS Code in a decent documented repo.

[–] callouscomic@lemmy.zip 122 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (19 children)

I learned how to do a fucking LOT of statistical shit in my degree. I also learned to get REALLY good at all kinds of shit in Excel.

Guess which helped my career on an actual practical way the most? Guess which made people seek me out at work for help with things?

Sometimes Excel is what's available. Sometimes it's just faster to do it that way rather than code up some ridiculously overdone solution in some programming language. Having both skills is best, but don't shit on opening an excel and just fucking getting it done, whatever it is.

If used right, it can also be a great equalizer with those less technically skilled in your workplace. You can quickly format and tune things and even layer a little bit of vba to make their lives easier without having to get into the complexity of an entire bespoke coded solution.


Also, a reminder for those in the back. For most of us, we aren't in college to learn a specific skill so much as we are there to learn how to be taught. To prove we are capable of taking instructions and producing results as requested.

If you never understand this, then you'll never understand later why you fail to land a high quality job.

[–] TomMasz@piefed.social 25 points 1 week ago

"Sometimes Excel is what's available."

I worked for a Big Company that was cutting back and dropped their Oracle contracts, forcing all the DBAs to work in Access. Then they fired all the DBAs, forcing everyone to either try to figure out Access or switch to Excel. Guess which way they went.

In my last job at that company, my department had built an Excel spreadsheet (database) so large and full of calculations they had to request money to update our machines to 64-bit Windows and 16GB RAM just to run it.

[–] rockstarmode@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

we aren't in college to learn a specific skill so much as we are there to learn how to be taught.

I really like this idea, but prefer one small change: I think it's best to learn how to learn.

Learning how to be taught is part of that, and a large part. Understanding when to absorb information, rely on experts, and apply yourself until you improve is fundamental. You won't get any arguments from me there.

But being taught is only one facet of learning. Sometimes experts aren't really experts, or don't have the learner's best interests at heart, or omit things to protect their own interests or ideology.

Learning how to learn involves fostering fundamental curiosity, not being afraid to fail, asking all the questions even dumb ones or those with seemingly obvious answers. Finding out "why" something works instead of just "how". Fundamentally curious people who learn as a habit tend to also develop a scientific method-like approach to evaluating incoming information: "Ok, this is the information I'm presented with, let's assume the opposite, can I prove the null hypothesis?" This acts as a pretty good bullshit detector, or at the very least trains learners to be skeptical, to trust but verify, which is enormously important in the age of misinformation.

Being taught generally tapers off as someone gets older, or becomes an expert. Learning never needs to taper off, so long as your brain still works.

[–] sevenapples@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 week ago

For most of us, we aren’t in college to learn a specific skill so much as we are there to learn how to be taught. To prove we are capable of taking instructions and producing results as requested.

This is true to the extent that you won't be solving Organic Chemistry 1 or Linear Algebra exercises at your workplace, but I think it's misleading. If anything, from my experience, people focus too much on producing the results and not enough on learning the skills. A lot of people stay on the mindset of "I only need the degree / where am I going to need that / the industry has moved on from this" and don't build strong foundations

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 4 points 1 week ago

Lemmy Silver™🥈 incoming !

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[–] rudyharrelson@lemmy.radio 58 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

I'm no academic, but it seems wrong to me that any field would require the use of a particular proprietary software in order to do one's homework assignments.

May Excel or SPSS be the best tool for the job? In many cases, sure! But students should be allowed to use whatever other software can also get the job done, as long as the software exports the assignment in a data format that the professor can reasonably ingest (e.g.: turning in a CSV file, which can be understood by many different kinds of software, not just Excel).

I understand professors have limited time to check homework and thus don't want to spend time learning how to do anything but open a single, specific filetype, but that's besides the point.

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 42 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It is extremely common for classes to require students to learn to use proprietary software. It's a tool of the trade. If they graduate you without teaching you how to use it, they'd be fucking you over and ruining their own reputation. Like, imagine an accounting student graduating not knowing excel, because they did all their assignments using MatLab because they liked it better. It would be absolutely unthinkable for any potential employer to hire such a student. Excel is the software they use in that field. If a student wants to learn a different option in their free time, that's fine and dandy.

[–] rudyharrelson@lemmy.radio 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It is extremely common for classes to require students to learn to use proprietary software. It’s a tool of the trade.

I understand that; my position is more ideological than practical. In an ideal scenario, AutoDesk, Adobe, Microsoft, etc wouldn't be so deeply entrenched in their respective fields such that they are the de-facto tools of the trade for every business which must be learned in order to be hired. I know a given student has to learn certain proprietary tools in the current academic and professional environment. My comment was saying I would prefer this not to be the case. I am fully aware that proprietary software domination in the academic and professional spaces is not going away any time soon.

In my ideal scenario, an interviewer at a company would ask, "Can you perform the following edits to a given graphic?" instead of "Can you use Photoshop?" since the former allows for candidates who can use alternatives like GIMP. I understand company pipelines aren't set up for this, either, because company pipelines are also deeply entrenched in proprietary software.

The OP's photo is specifically about professors allowing other software to be used. Which would be a good starting point for making these kinds of changes.

[–] feinstruktur@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

What does not knowing excel even mean? If you're in STEM and would be tought the fundamentals of statistics independently of any software tool, you would gain the knowledge to apply these skills to any tool. And sorry to say, but after that Excel is just learning syntax.

[–] zout@fedia.io 7 points 1 week ago

True, but what I see in chemical engineering is college graduates not being very able to use Excel, because they all used Aspen and other very expensive software in college.

[–] icelimit@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I can never say this enough: the best tool is the tool that gets the job done

[–] Goodeye8@piefed.social 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Found the guy who would use a flathead screwdriver to regulate a demon core.

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[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hmm. What about CAD? The professor going to teach FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, F360, OnShape, etc?

I think requiring one tool is OK. You're there to learn the process in a way that you can migrate to what you want later. Teachers aren't paid enough as it is, so it should be made as easy as possible for them to manage the flow of work.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah, FreeCAD is open source and great (I use it at home)

But you're not landing a job requiring it, you'll use SolidWorks like everybody else

And if you find yourself in the 10% of companies which use some other CAD program, you will have to learn on the job

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[–] KTJ_microbes@mander.xyz 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] austinfloyd@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 week ago

Hell, R was being used in colleges in 2000. Unfortunately, whether it was SPSS for the soft sciences or forcing stats work in Matlab for the engineers, professors always seemed bad at promoting the right tool for the job.

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[–] Chrobin@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That reminds me of a story my bachelor's supervisor in astrophysics told me: One of his best PhDs applied at an insurance company. They got an Excel sheet with data that they had 1 week to analyze. All the other applicants took the whole week. He just put it in Python, solved it in a few hours, and got the job.

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[–] Gustephan@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Old people and technology man. My advisor during my masters was an absolutely brilliant woman; she's one of the people who has been basically defining the field of data science since the early 90s. The first time I ever published with her, I sent my first draft and her response was "can you convert this to docx? I don't know how to work with tex." I still think she's one of the most brilliant people I've ever known but damn did it hurt to work on Microsoft word documents with her

[–] Taalnazi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Have you got recommendations for learning how to use tex, R, or Python for those that haven't learnt how to programme?

[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I think there are free editors for LaTeX that show you the code and the end result next to each other, and let you edit either.

You need to learn the ability to resist the urge to tweak layout. You're using a professional document preparation tool that well make your document look professional. Playing with trendy fonts and margins and placement is how regular people make documents in a word processor that look less professional than LaTeX.

LaTeX gives you the respectability of the corporate style of the professional science researcher, but if you want free-form do-it-how-you-like, you really really really don't want LaTeX.

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[–] ComradeRachel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Excel dominates the world of number crunching. Want to change that? You can't.

Imagine proposing an alternative for your organization that has been using Excel for two decades. Will every single sheet and workbook translate perfectly? If not, not good enough for dealing with numbers. This is why MS never fucks around with Excel. The risk/reward calculation (heh) is not a fit for open source spreadsheets.

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Haha, Microsoft absolutely changes shit all the time. Millions of organisations around the world have an octogenarian computer standing somewhere in a corner because they need it running the old software.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not Excel they don't, not ever. Been working in the office for almost 30 years. Excel does not change except to add tidbits and it's fully backwards compatible. You don't have any experience in this, do you?

[–] ftbd@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the world of number crunching

Weird, I've never heard of excel being used on HPC systems

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[–] Grimtuck@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not just within your organisation, but imagine trying to share something other than Excel outside of it!

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

CSVs are a common format to share data

[–] Nikelui@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Yes, but data only.

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[–] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 week ago

Heh. I actually was using SPSS in 2010 for statistics. Weird memory resurfacing there.

[–] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago

LinkedIn ass title

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago

If the math underneath is valid then I don't really care what calculator I use.

[–] kadup@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Excel I agree with.

But sometimes there is value in teaching the old tools/frameworks for doing something. For instance, in bioinformatics, I prefer students that can explain what the FASTA format is versus just boinking the pretty GUI button on the proprietary format used by their sequencer.

[–] sfjvvssss@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Not sure if the post is about GUI vs non-GUI. I read it as use R or pandas instead if SPSS.

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[–] mehdi_benadel@lemmy.balamb.fr 6 points 1 week ago

He said 2010, I was teached how to use the Microsoft Office suite in 1999. This goes way back.

(As a matter of fact one of my first website I made in FrontPage back then. I actually discovered Word on Windows 3.1 when I was around 5, hence my father's friend calling me mehdi.doc lol)

[–] radix@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

They were living in 2025 when they posted that in 2023. I don't think the stats software is the biggest story here.

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What's the current software for this?

[–] Gieselbrecht@feddit.org 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

R (and Python) are increasingly common, in my opinion. 14 years ago when I started university I learned SPSS but never used it, then I learned a lot of Stata which I use currently because it is the lingua franca at my institute, but prefer R for my own research.

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