Re: The problem with not owning the software

On Mon, 6 Jan 2025 16:16:20 -0500, DFS wrote:

I entered a gene named 'March 2' (no apostrophes) into LO Calc and it
converted to a date.

I tried importing some of those potentially troublesome gene names from a
CSV file with LO Calc’s default settings, and it read them in just fine.

You see, it has some smarts to tell what’s supposed to be a date, from
something that’s not.

That egregious data mangling issue would affect a whole lot of genetics
research work... if anyone was crazy enough to use LibreOffice.

That is in fact the recommendation in that paper I cited -- if you don’t
know how to use proper stats software, but only know spreadsheets, than LO
Calc is a better (or rather, less bad) choice than Excel.

You're literally blaming human error on Excel.

HAL: “Well, I don’t think there is any question about it. It can only be
attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and
it has always been due to human error.”

Poole: “Listen, HAL ... There’s never been any instance at all of a ...
computer error occurring in the 9000 series, has there?”

HAL: “None whatsoever, Frank. The 9000 series has a perfect operational
record.”

Poole: “Well, of course I know all the wonderful achievements of the 9000
series, but ... uh ... Are you certain there’s never been any case of even
the most insignificant computer error?”

HAL: “None whatsoever, Frank. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t worry myself
about that.”