Substitutions

My oldest daughter is working in an electronic orders fulfillment center until she can find a job in her field. She does not enjoy it but it does help her pay her bills. Our evening conversation today revolved around substitutions. Someone will order one product that she is unable to find in the warehouse and so the computer suggests an alternative. Sometimes those substitutions don't make sense and my daughter will note it but most of the time they work.

I thought about how I use substitutions in my daily job working with data. Sometimes I work with a small amount of data in a spreadsheet. Other times I work with large amounts of data in a data warehouse. Can I do the same operations in both tools? After doing this for many years, I can answer that question with a truthful, "Yes."

A few weeks ago I received a spreadsheet with 190,000 or so rows. I immediately needed to do some aggregate functions. That means I needed to count how many rows met certain criteria for text columns or come up with a sum or average for number columns. I had the choice of using either a database or a spreadsheet. To me it didn't make a difference which tool I used. Ultimately I inserted the rows into a database and performed my analysis there.

Working with a computer there are always a choice of tools you can use. While you may have grown used to Microsoft's Excel, you might not have that option with a new personal computer. If you have a Mac, the spreadsheet program Numbers is included in the operating system for free. You also have the choice of using Google spreadsheets. They all have their pros and cons but you should never feel locked into using a specific tool.

This is true for more complex software as well. My youngest son is a mechanical engineer and has access to a very expensive computer aided design (CAD) program called SolidWorks. It can do a lot. There are also a number of less capable products that can tackle any personal projects he decides to start without the exorbitant cost. When I needed to create very specific candle holders for one of my wife's Christmas decorations, I used TinkerCAD. I learned it easy and quickly had the design I needed for my 3D printer. There are a number of even more feature-rich options should you need them. The trick is knowing how to find them.

With the ubiquity of open source software and vast array of commercial software choices, you should never feel there is only one way to get something done on your computer. There are always multiple. The trick is learning how to use Internet search engines and sift through the bad suggestions to find good ones. Perhaps that is a post for another day.

Apple's Numbers vs. Microsoft's Excel

For the past several months I have been using Apple's Numbers spreadsheet program since I had to give up my work laptop. On my work laptop, I used Microsoft's Excel and even after almost half a year I have to say that I prefer Excel. I'm sure part of that is because I have years of experience with one versus a few months with the other.

I would have to say that my biggest complaint with Numbers is that a new document with a fixed-size spreadsheet. The default is a table with only 7 columns and 22 rows. Sure you can add columns or rows but each addition requires the click of an on-screen button. There also is a button that allows you to grab the lower right corner of the spreadsheet and drag it to as large as you think you will need. I actually prefer Excel's way of allowing you to scroll right or down and having new columns and rows appear.

Another thing that takes a bit of getting used to in Numbers is the right-side format bar. I feel like this should give me greater control of how the spreadsheet is formatted. Unfortunately it feels more like wasted space. I like how Excel puts all the format control at the top of the spreadsheet allowing for more visible columns.

Where the two spreadsheet products are similar is with a lot of the calculations and functions. The formula "=sum(B2:B14)" works equally well in both programs and that is important. I would hate to have to learn a new way of entering formulas.

I moved a lot of my personal spreadsheets from my work laptop to my personal computer and Numbers does a pretty good job of reading them. There are some missing fonts that I keep getting errors about but I can deal with that problem easily. The error I get is "This spreadsheet has missing fonts." I think a bigger problem would be functions that are not supported and I haven't seen any of those.

I will continue to use Numbers as I like the price: FREE. It is included with the MacOS and updated regularly. Perhaps I will learn to embrace the differences in the future but right now I see them as annoyances.