You really think not using outlook makes me fit the asshole category!

But there's a reason we all put "BS required" in those ads, and it is because it's a filter. ?It's not a have/not have filter. ?It's an asshole/not asshole filter. This proves the job seekers view of HR, The complexity of a machines repair here is required as a primary skill, some thing as simple as mail program can be learned or taught, it is far to trivial to be mentioned in any job specification.

I have a horrible feeling I am going to regret adding my 2c to this argument. On 4 October 2011 14:40, Dave Caroline <dave.thearchivist at gmail.com> wrote: No. But getting up tight/argumentative over a trivial piece of the job description would certainly make you a candidate.

>>>

I think the point and the reader failed to converge.

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 8:12 AM, Simon Fryer <fryers at gmail.com> wrote: It is a trivial requirement but cuts me out from applying at all, it trumps skills I do have.

In article <CALfYgt=b_yBskG6jj2XSeRZ_LrFx+19ouvKzsHiFX45cQGds4w at mail.gmail.com>, ? ?Dave Caroline <dave.thearchivist at gmail.com> writes: Yes. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download ?<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> ? ? ?Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

In article<CALfYgt=b_yBskG6jj2XSeRZ_LrFx+19ouvKzsHiFX45cQGds4w at mail.gmail.com>, Dave Caroline<dave.thearchivist at gmail.com> writes: Yes.

You really think not using outlook makes me fit the asshole category!

I know I will regret dipping my toe in this argument, because I'll dump some facts on very well established classiccmop groupthink, but hopeful

It's the party line of course to blame HR in general and the recruiters in particular for being "gatekeepers" and not realizing how amazing the non-degreed candidate is. That's bullshit. The recruiters are *paid*

candidate pool. But there's a reason we all put "BS required" in those

You really think not using outlook makes me fit the asshole category!

I have a horrible feeling I am going to regret adding my 2c to this argum= ent. On 4 October 2011 14:40, Dave Caroline <dave.thearchivist at gmail.com> wrot= e: No. But getting up tight/argumentative over a trivial piece of the job description would certainly make you a candidate.

I had a very quick read of the job spec and while understanding the complexity of machines quite highly rated, this is a senior role. I would expect that report writing, project management and managing people are equally high on the list... To the point where I would expect the role to actually involve very little fault finding and repairing, and a more supervision. This did not read like a job spec

Are you kidding me? It's a stupid email program. Any drooling monkey can learn how to use it in 10 minutes. Go download it, install it and mess around with it for a day to see all the spiffy calendar features, etc. Uninstall and add it to your resume'. :)

So why do you care if they require Outlook or not? Seriously? :)

Of late the negativity in CCTALK has reached somewhat epic proportions - and people are coming across in a rather poor light. Many posters seem to be permanently stuck in the stone age and appear to hate anything produced in the last 30 years. This post is a perfect example : "Outhouse" and "Weird" - hate to tell you but both of those particular products have been the business standard for quite a few years now and a lot of roles are advertised that require the applicants to be proficient in their uses.

Nor should users of the products be denigrated as useless or idiots because they use them - claiming such only proves that YOU are the foolish one.

These are the tools of the trade now (and despite the haters who seem to think they are "rubbish") are rather powerful ones - especially Outlook.

Cheers, Lance (yes - written in Outlook)

Of late the negativity in CCTALK has reached somewhat epic proportions - and people are coming across in a rather poor light. Many posters seem to be permanently stuck in the stone age and appear to hate anything produced in the last 30 years.

This post is a perfect example :

"Outhouse" and "Weird" - hate to tell you but both of those particular products have been the business standard for quite a few years now and a lot of roles are advertised that require the applicants to be proficient in their uses.

Nor should users of the products be denigrated as useless or idiots because they use them - claiming such only proves that YOU are the foolish one.

These are the tools of the trade now (and despite the haters who seem to think they are "rubbish") are rather powerful ones - especially Outlook.

I have a fondness for Commodore 8 bit machines and have for a long time, but you won't ever find me holding them up as the paragon of computing experience or denigrating users of modern equipment/software in the false belief that the tools of the trade were better 30 years ago!

Were I a newbie looking for info on older machines and had I stumbled across this thread first I doubt I'd want to jump in and participate for fear of the angst I'd face from the stone age "things were better" people here.

And to drag this back on topic, in my role (Genesys engineer), when I'm hiring people that piece of paper that states they are a certified Genesys professional has great importance - I would not hire someone if (a) they didn't have it, or (b) they weren't embarked on the certification process without some indication that they would come out the other end with the relevant qualifications. There are times when a piece of paper is extremely important to some roles because it shows dedication to achieving the relevant learning for a particular role.

Going backwards - we may all love and be passionate about our old machines and may have learnt skills to keep our hobby alive, but those skills (ie soldering, coding in a dead language etc) don't nec. translate into something useful in today's computer related job market and people should not be put down or denigrated because they don't have them.

Cheers, Lance (yes - written in Outlook)

On 10/04/2011 04:19 PM, Lance Lyon wrote: "Business standard"...assuming that's even true, are you suggesting that this is supposed to indicate a good product, or suggest that I should use it? That's pretty silly, and awfully unprofessional.

"Business people" love Microsoft because they think Microsoft and Bill Gates are the same entity, and like to be associated with money and financial success. These people typically haven't an iota of technical know-how, and they're NOT the people who should be telling others what tools to use to do their jobs.

No. Nowhere was it suggested that Outlook and Word are bad because they're somehow "modern". It was suggested that Outlook and Word are bad because, well, they ARE. And frankly, anyone with so much as a whit of technical experience or know-how KNOWS that. Like it or not, computers are technical tools. You don't see true

hard-core technical people using Outlook or Word, EVER. There's a reason for that. Trust the opinions of people who actually know how this stuff works and what it's supposed to do, not some plastic-haired idiot out on the golf course who will buy anything that's advertised in BusinessWeek magazine.

I don't think he meant "anyone", I think he was referring to a specific "someone". :)

I wonder how may business types have ever seriosuly evaluated what's actually available rahter than just buying soemthing because it's from Microsoft (or whoever).

Yep, and there's a darn good reason for that. Almsot nothing produced in the last 30 yerars has improved my life one bit. I refucse to regard them as standards for one very good reason. They are not fully documented. The 'stnadard metre' is a standard. It's docuemtned, I can in principle recreate it at home. But just try getting enough docuemntation to fully interpret a Word file. I fail to see why. In the case of Outlook, surely any e-mail prgram can send/receive mail that is compatible with it. Does it matter what I choose to use? It's about as sensible as saying I _must_ use a tektronix 'scope. In the case of Word, I can understnad that alas we've got in a situation whete propriatry programs are used and where you van't correctly generate or interpet the docuemtnes without using that progam. Why the world got int othat state is beyond me, but... However, I would argue that for somebody emplyed as a designer, vintage computer engineer, or whatreer, learning Word is a trivial task for them, based on what they already know. Unless said person has a religious objection to said program, it's surely better to pick the candidate who is best at reapiring vintage computers (a skill which can not be picked up in an afternoon) rather than the one who knows Word (which can). I am not conviced thet would be any better than the tools I already use for the jovs I need to do now. If that changes I am nat averse to considering them. -tony

Outlook - eh, its got its plus' and minus' - I stop using it years ago due to all of the security flaws in it, plus it was such a slow prog and a resource hog - though now lately - Thunderbird is getting a bit sluggish and sometimes goes outta control memory usage insane...

I don;t Soem fo approrpriate obviosuly thier meansyou're not a prectical persion'. bothrered tbhey Taht invterviewer understnaa candidtate buzzword,s arew ina differnet thst probzbly folloiw microcontrolelr Somethign leaat saem absolutle ownderful othre doens't considert Otherwiase enginewer soemthing htey lsit

Why can't HR people use their mother tongue in the accepted way?

(anyone remember eudora? :D)

Word has been around for almost 30 years so there is no reason why anyone should complain about its use, its also one of the easiest programs to use (up to Word 97' then after that the interface got annoyingly top heavy and insanely overpopulated, the latest revision is so ridiculously complex - plus always wants to save its default to the .docx type, it becomes garbage) but if you can use wordpad, you can use Word... Quite frankly, why we are all using Word today is it was a lot easier to use then Wordperfect which we're all talking about a program that went back to CP/M days...

I fail to see why. In the case of Outlook, surely any e-mail prgram can send/receive mail that is compatible with it. Does it matter what I choose to use? It's about as sensible as saying I _must_ use a tektronix 'scope.

Word has been around for almost 30 years so there is no reason why anyone should complain about its use, its also one of the easiest programs to use (up to Word 97' then after that the interface got annoyingly top heavy and insanely overpopulated, the latest revision is so ridiculously complex - plus always wants to save its default to the .docx type, it becomes garbage) but if you can use wordpad, you can use Word... Quite frankly, why we are all using Word today is it was a lot easier to use then Wordperfect which we're all talking about a program that went back to CP/M days... Outlook - eh, its got its plus' and minus' - I stop using it years ago due to all of the security flaws in it, plus it was such a slow prog and a resource hog - though now lately - Thunderbird is getting a bit sluggish and sometimes goes outta control memory usage insane... So what should we do? Go back to edlin or vi for wordprocessing? Maybe Electric Pencil? as for email, hey lets go back to uucp mail programs or maybe lets use SNDMSG, you don't like Outlook, lets go back to MS Mail.... ;-)

Tony Duell wrote: >> Of late the negativity in CCTALK has reached somewhat epic >> proportions - and >> people are coming across in a rather poor light. Many posters seem to be >> permanently stuck in the stone age and appear to hate anything >> produced in >> the last 30 years. > > Yep, and there's a darn good reason for that. Almsot nothing produced > in the last 30 yerars has improved my life one bit. > >> This post is a perfect example : >> >> "Outhouse" and "Weird" - hate to tell you but both of those particular >> products have been the business standard for quite a few years now >> and a lot > > I refucse to regard them as standards for one very good reason. They > are not fully documented. The 'stnadard metre' is a standard. It's > docuemtned, I can in principle recreate it at home. But just try > getting enough docuemntation to fully interpret a Word file. >...

more than 10GB is ONE of my folders...

Recent releases have fixed that pretty well; response time is pretty much instantaneous for most operations. (for me at least, and I have GIGANTIC mail spools) Trying really hard not to.

On Tue, 4 Oct 2011, Brent Hilpert wrote: all of which are "lysdexia", adjacent keys, etc. none of which are homonym substitutions, or lack of understanding of correct word(s) (no "their" v "they're", "to" v "too", etc.)

Surely NONE of those errors would have ever occured if he were to be using Outlook!

Further yet, WTF does that have to do with EMAIL?! Lack of product purpose focus is hardly the exclusive domain of Microsoft, heck look at iTunes which does EVERYTHING now...and if you try hard enough, it'll actually play mp3s...but calendaring built into an email client is pretty silly.

At 05:36 PM 10/4/2011, Dave McGuire wrote: Oh, I'm still stuck in Eudora 7.1.0.9 (Windows circa 2006). I tried to import my ~8 gig of mailboxes into Thunderbird a year or two ago but it did not seem to be able to handle it. Maybe it was all the attachments and the way Eudora handled "embedded" objects in HTML-ish email. - John

> all of which are "lysdexia", adjacent keys, etc. none of which are > homonym substitutions, or lack of understanding of correct word(s) (no > "their" v "they're", "to" v "too", etc.) >> On 2011 Oct 4, at 1:10 PM, Tony Duell also wrote: >>> Why can't HR people use their mother tongue in the accepted way?

Most of them, not all of them. Regardless, it's not an excuse. I hit adjacent keys in the wrong order a lot too, but I make an effort to correct them before hitting send.

The writer can't be bothered to take a few seconds to correct his typos, the result is 100's/1000's of readers have to waste time stumbling over interpreting his message(s). I'm not being anal - it's casual email conversation, not a thesis, and much of it can glossed over - but there is a point past which it is an insult to the reader.

This is much the same as the recent criticisms of tortured grammar. The writer is basically saying his time is more important than the readers' time. If you're writing notes to yourself, do whatever you want. If you're intending to communicate to others: language has rules for a reason.

On 10/04/2011 05:34 PM, Tony Duell wrote: Actually, I'd equate "you must use Outlook" with "you must use a cheap plastic Chinese 'scope". ;)

believe The very nature of a job in the museum world dealing with old machines requires a learning ability

and more importantly relearning old skills as befitting a machine of its = age. Its one of the reasons for my personal library. After 40 years

volunteering in various museums and archives I know this "learning" is continuous and required.

It was thus said that the Great Tony Duell once stated: To be fair, there is *one* feature of Lookout that not many other e-mail programs support---that is, the ability of managers to schedule your time in meetings and update your calendar automatically.

> There are, however SOME language rules that I CHOOSE to flagrantly break.

I also refuse to capitalise something that can never be capitalised, even at the start of a sentence. Things like variable names, unix commands, etc. Of course it's best not to start a sentence with something like that, but...

Err, yes, sorry... I was just giving an example, not moaning about Tekky.... Although modern Tektronix 'scopes seem to be in plastic casings, and it wouldn't suprise me if some parts were made in China. More seriously, If you ask me to fix your classic computer you (I asusme) don't care what tools I use. I cna use any brand of screwdriver I choose. Of course, if I chew up the screw heads, or damage the plastic casing by using the wrong sort of screwdriver then you have every reason to moan, but I've not met anyone who cares whether I use CK, Xcellite, Facom, or whoever. Ditto for test gear. I like tektronix 'scopes, but even if you prefer LeCroy, I don't think you're going to complain if I find/fix the fault. It should be the same with computer tools too. Provided I can read and produce files in the format you require it shouldn't matter what I use, and what machine/OS I run it on.

There are, however SOME language rules that I CHOOSE to flagrantly break. Those include comma before "and" in a list, "LOGICAL" placement of

Absolutely. But here in America, thieving idiots wearing ties occasionally wander in off the golf course and tell technical experts how to do their jobs, and feel perfectly justified in doing so.

On 10/05/2011 03:51 PM, Tony Duell wrote: And it actually LOOKS good. I've often wondered if Microsoft has hired ANYONE who knows anything at all about typography.

The typographic convention is inside, but do whatever you want electronically... nobody's watching except your inner Aspie...

On 10/05/2011 11:09 PM, Toby Thain wrote: ...and everyone else for whom I want to show respect by communicating to them accurately. ;)

-Dave

True, but 1) few people really notice and 2) rules tend to be a bit looser in media like email and irc, I seem to observe. Perhaps because the traditional cost of fixing a typo in a warehouse full of 200,000 books is relatively prohibitive :)

^^ look, I omitted a period & you didn't notice! So there's a new de facto rule: No period after an emoticon...

What's the rule there? Comma or no comma? Is it "this, that, and the other thing" or "this, that and the other thing"?

Also, howabout a prtiod ending a sentence of which the last component is quoted text? Period inside or outside the double quotes?

On 10/05/2011 02:15 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: What's the rule there? Comma or no comma? Is it "this, that, and the other thing" or "this, that and the other thing"?

Also, howabout a period ending a sentence of which the last component is quoted text? Period inside or outside the double quotes?

Do whatever you like online, but if you're typesetting, you should follow proper typographic practice.

On 10/05/2011 02:15 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: What's the rule there? Comma or no comma? Is it "this, that, and the other thing" or "this, that and the other thing"?

Also, howabout a period ending a sentence of which the last component is quoted text? Period inside or outside the double quotes?

I wonder if they like having hot soldering irons thrust up bodily orifices?

But, when I was doing the Honda book (a non-computer project 30+ years ago), my publisher insisted that I was "breaking the rule". We also faught about "burnt valve" V "burned valve". And wherever I wrote "tighten til snug", he wanted to change it to "till"! So, I changed all instances to "until".

of people have seen fit to publicly argue over the employer's parameters or express their shock that a company run and paid for by a Microsoft co-founder might (gasp!) want the prospective employee to be capable of using Microsoft communication tools. For what it's worth, I'm sure these

On 4 October 2011 21:48, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: It *is* true. No, and he didn't say that. They are not clean, or elegant, or entirely reliable. But they do work and millions of businesses do trillions of dollars' worth of business using them. They /are/ fit for purpose. He's not suggesting that either. However, you cannot simply dismiss them as useless. They are not; their tens of millions of users refute that. Frankly, Dave, no, *your* attitude is. Utter tosh. Businesspeople run MS because businesses run MS. Because MS' are the standard file formats, tools, because the staff you hire /will/ know MS, because the files you exchange with your clients and suppliers will be MS files carried on MS systems, and most of all, because the techies you hire will be MS techies. Why? Because MS techies are cheap and plentiful and all other kinds are scarce, hard to retain, tend to be prima donnas with their own strong views on how to run things, and they are extremely expensive into the deal. MS is cheap commodity software that runs on cheap commodity hardware and can be both used and maintained by cheap commodity staff. There /are/ no really credible alternatives any more. This is because of MS' decades of illegal anti-competitive manouvreing in the 1980s and 1990s, but it's too late to cry over that spilled milk now. Sadly, the vast majority of techies, from menials to directors, all know MS and nothing else now. Yes, that means they're inferior techies, but they are all you can get. Outlook is only half the solution. It's part of a system, and the other half is Exchange. For all its faults, nothing else does what Exchange does and nothing ever has. It is not an email server. It is a groupware and workflow server. It does *push* delivery, it does shared calendaring and shared company directories, and whereas there are lots of other fine email servers out there and a handful of calendaring or group-directory servers, they're single-function tools which have to be assembled by skilful experts, and those experts are very very expensive, and you're utterly dependent on them. Get rid of one, you're screwed, because any replacement will immediately suggest ripping out his predecessor's solution and implementing his own. As for Word - actually, for all its faults and weirdnesses, Word was a very fine high-end wordprocessor until the Fluent interface came in and ruined it. Excel - well, it's the most polished spreadsheet there's ever been. Other did some things better, but Excel does everything you could ever need. Powerpoint? Workable. Access? Pile of crap. But Approach died and Filemaker never really broke out on Windows. Outlook is the crown jewel, though. I hate it but it is bloody good at what it does. Nightmare when it fails, but if you're on an Exchange server, it hardly matters. Utterly untrue. Total bollocks, in fact. I can point to hundreds I know or have worked with personally in the last 5y alone. No there isn't, because it's not the case. Idiots may have been how MS got established, although undercutting the competition and shrewdly forcing upgrades and so on have more to do with it. But not now. You don't seem to have any idea of how the real world of business actually operates, Dave. I'm sorry, but both bigotry and utterly unrealistic beliefs shine out of this. That's just crap, actually, I agree. Dave, you have to try to get a handle on the hatred. I too hate Microsoft and the majority of its products, I hate the illegal tactics that it's used to gain its monopoly position and much more besides. I prefer Macs, but I'm not too happy about that company's tactics and commercial methods either. So I run Linux, but it sucks. Ubuntu sucks less than any other Linux, and Linux sucks less than any other Unix I've ever seen, but they're still crap. I am nostalgic for the performance and responsiveness of Acorn RISC OS and the way BeOS felt like it liberated the power of x86 PCs, for the command line flexibility of VMS, for the simplicity of MS-DOS, for the completeness of the classic Mac OS Finder. But they're all gone. However, I have to earn a living, and, conservatively, 98% of the business world revolves around MS and nothing but MS. A few big back-end systems run Oracle and things, but the front-ends are /all/ MS. When MS sells 20,000 licences, it's a small deal. Nothing worth reporting. When SUSE sells 20,000 licences, it's front-page news in the IT press all over the world. And most of those sales have gone back within a year or two, sadly. Linux in business is bodged-together servers that the bosses don't know about and people's ad hoc recovery disks, monitoring boxes and so on. Even the commercial-grade routers don't run it - that's home stuff. Macs are stuck in a niche and while they are growing that's in large part because modern Macs can run Windows and Windows apps in a VM. The desktop and laptop world, the corporare world, is a Microsoft world. Everything else amounts for 5-10%, if that, on a good day with a following wind. It's shitty and it was achieved illegally but *it is the case* and no amount of shouting invective will change that. Gates is a lying, cheating, scheming thief who is buying himself a good name by giving away his obscenely-massive ill-gotten gains to charity. He hasn't even got the imagination of a Paul Allen or Elon Musk, who do good, creative things with their money. He's a nasty venal small-minded little nerd who stabbed in the back every business that came close to him and climbed high on the dead bodies. But he is still atop that mound. Anyone who came close is a bleeding corpse under his feet - Netscape, Sun, WordPerfect, Lotus, even mighty IBM's PC hardware and software businesses. Oracle and Apple have only lived by staying the hell out of the way, and Microsoft is still shooting big guns at both of them. There is no point denying it. You can help it, but not by calling people liars and idiots, but by in a measured and friendly and supportive fashion showing them how they can use non-Microsoft tools to their advantage and save time and money in so doing. But in business, it's almost a lost cause. Businesses don't care how much it costs - it's a fraction of the staff costs, and non-MS staff are vastly expensive. Anything has to be instantly familiar to MS-only staff and it has to be deployable off ActiveDirectory using a Group Policy and stable and supported for the lifetime of the hardware, which you just can't do with Mozilla anything or Chrome or OpenOffice or LibreOffice or *any* of the rival tools. -- Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

Flame away if you like, but bear in mind that it makes you look stupid and seem immature.

*I* dislike it because it sucks, too. Our opinions have little bearing on the continents-full of people using it, though.

I work in the field every day and have watched the rise of MICROS~1 since my getting into the industry in 1988; before that, I watched from the sidelines from around the time of the introduction of the IBM PC, which is, coincidentally, about the time I got interested in computers and computing.

[Shrug] No skin off my nose, but I'm working in the business computing world still and I know what it's like. You don't seem to.

Great way to grow and learn, that. Block out anyone who corrects you. Let us know how you get on with that, won't you?

No, not at all. I assert that it's unprofessional to go around calling people arseholes and liars and idiots.

Or swearing all the time.

Or claiming that tools used by more people than live in your entire country are useless rubbish.

Or claiming that the former richest corporation in the world, owned and run by the former richest man in the world, are incompetents.

So tell me, top-quoting boy, how do you feel this enhances your reputation for professionalism, skill and knowledge? :?)

I'm not offended and it doesn't really matter to me if you read this or don't, but man, you really need to "take a chill pill" and calm down and learn to accept what you can't change.

You change people's minds by showing them that you understand them and then gradually leading them in the direction of better tools, methods and practices, not by shouting at them and calling them idiots.

Excel - well, it's the most polished spreadsheet there's ever been. Other did some things better, but Excel does everything you could ever need.

> Excel - well, it's the most polished spreadsheet there's ever been. > Other did some things better, but Excel does everything you could ever > need.

Actually it doesn't do everything I could ever need which leads me to a serious qyestion : Did/does any spreadsheet, on any platform, allow you to put complex numbers in the cells and operate on them? Yes, of course you can treat a complex numner as 2 real numbers and define the appropriate operations -- any spreadsheet will do that. I did it in Visicalc. But as I use complex numbers a lot in AC circuit analysis, and I know others who do too, I am suprised no spreadsheet handles them as well as my HP calculators.

Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:43:53 +0100 Subject: Re: Spreadsheets (was Microsoft flamage) From: lproven at gmail.com To: cctech at classiccmp.org On 19 October 2011 23:27, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: OK, I defer. I was not aware of anything 1-2-3 could do that Excel could not, but hey, apparently there is. I was wrong. Sorry. -- Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

you're kidding right? excel is a joke. 1-2-3 was much better, quattro was even better sadly both have been crushed by monopoly of m$ is quattro old enough to be considered classic computing yet? :) ever what a did which uses, monitors

. . . We just HAD TO call you on your use of the word "everything". Excel certainly has hundreds of "features" that I'll never use, and might never even become aware of. I assigned creating a partial implementation of form 1040EZ when I was [involuntarily] assigned to teach a [REMEDIAL] Intro to computers class using Microsoft Office. ?I did not do a good job of it - a lot of the students cheated! ?and retyped a long paragraph just to avoid learning "cut and paste"! I LIKE Excel, but the depth of my knowledge of it leaves quite a bit to be desired.

I once thought I knew it very well, but that was 15y ago. It has grown vastly and since I have never had any use for any of the new features, such as pivot tables, my knowledge has stagnated. But was I understanding correctly earlier? That 1-2-3 could handle complex numbers and do maths operations on them, whereas Excel can't?

I read once that the creation of the spreadsheet is the basic trigger for the loss of leadership skills at the helms of most companies. The logic went something along the lines of ' spreadsheets allowed decisions to be justified, not based on what was good (tm), instead of having a sound financial basis. ?Resulting the the removal of decision making powers by visionaries, into the hands of the bean counters who should have been making sure that there was money in the bank." So - in that context, why would an engineer ever need the tool of a back room bean counter, who has been pushed into the executive offices?? Doug

On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 9:54 AM, Dan Gahlinger <dgahling at hotmail.com> wrote: -- Doug Jackson VK1ZDJ http://www.dougswordclock.com/ ?-< My clocks http://www.vk1zdj.net -< My Amature Radio Activities

So - in that context, why would an engineer ever need the tool of a back room bean counter, who has been pushed into the executive offices??

No, I've not managed to find one, and nor has anyone I've talked to (many of whom also want it). This is a serious question, BTW, not M$-bashing or anything like that. I do use complex numbers for AC circuit analysis, they are useful to represent the magnitude and pahse of signals, things like that. I'ev been told many times that the reason I can't get a 'good' scientific calcualtor any more is that 'everybody uses a spreadsheet'. That may be true (for suitable approximations to 'everybody' :-)), but nonetheless my HP RPL machines handle complex numbers directly and are much easier to sue for AC circuit problems than any normal spreadsheet as a result, -tony

I think a true engineer (or scientist, hacker, what have you) will use whatever they consider to be the most appropriate tool for the job in hand, no matter who else might use it, or what they might use it for. -tony

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011, Andrew Burton wrote: Excel is part of Microsoft OFFICE, NOT part of Windows. Q: Is it also included in "WORKS"?

I deal with plenty of Windoze machines that don't have it, and I need to decide whether to buy additional copies V installing Open Office. ?My personal preference, of course, would be Open Office, but other people have participation in the decision making process. ?Several things might be different if they let me make the decisions.

If you want, I'm sure that somebody could provide you copies of Lotus and Visicalc that you could run on current machines.

On 10/20/2011 03:36 PM, Tony Duell wrote: That makes about as much sense as saying "We don't need screwdrivers anymore, because we have pickles!" Two totally different tools for two totally different jobs. Stop the world, I wanna get off.

Don't leave yet! Someone's gonna show up with a #2 Square Drive pickle at _any_ moment! :)

Dave McGuire wrote:

Hope you're wearing your asbestos skivvies. [Snip]

Doesn't that cover pretty much everything ever acquired by CA? :)

Excel is easy to use and comes with all Windows based computers.

Sadly I am not old enough (or lucky enough) to have used any alternatives - though I have heard of Lotus long before I joined this list. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

On 10/20/2011 03:36 PM, Tony Duell wrote: That makes about as much sense as saying "We don't need screwdrivers anymore, because we have pickles!" Two totally different tools for two totally different jobs.

On 20/10/11 11:58 PM, Jerome H. Fine wrote: We didn't need to wait for Mr Kahn. The Greeks were all over this one: ?"...we must be able to employ persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed, on opposite sides of a questio, not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him. No other of the arts draws opposite conclusions: dialectic and rhetoric alone do this. Both these arts draw opposite conclusions impartially. Nevertheless, the underlying facts do not lend themselves equally well to the contrary views. No; things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in." ?(Aristotle, "Rhetoric") --T

At the risk if being naive, perhaps this list could use a bit of inspiration - to see if we could help the discussion to be more useful. There is a book written by Michael Kahn: ?"The TAO of Conversation". The primary point is that in an idea conversation, there can never be an opinion which is right or wrong. ?Attempting to support an opinion helps us to understand the opinion even if we totally disagree with that opinion. While I agree with both of the opinions of Dave McGuire and Liam Proven, it seems difficult to figure out exactly which is more useful because they seem so angry at each other.

We could use a bit of "Barn Raising".

On this list, isn't it 'Stop arguing you two, or I'll crash your heads right into the platter' :-) -tony

On Oct 22, 2011, at 9:06 PM, Tony Duell wrote: That was actually very funny!

Dave McGuire wrote:

Not from my point of view.

That much was obvious. ?The question is why you became irritated! Read the source (the book) Luke (Liam), read the source. There is much more behind the concepts in the book, but they are a good start. ?After reading for more than 36 years, I am just beginning to understand myself. ?I also used to be irritated (still am sometimes - and I also react without thinking some of the time), so it is now easy to recognize those events even easier in others as opposed to myself.

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011, Andrew Burton wrote: Excel is part of Microsoft OFFICE, NOT part of Windows.

If you want, I'm sure that somebody could provide you copies of Lotus and Visicalc that you could run on current machines. While MOST of us see Excel as a bloated or just feature heavy Visiclone, I guess that from YOUR perspective, Visicalc/Lotus would seem like "stripped down" variants of Excel.