this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Microsoft fixes the Excel feature that was wrecking scientific data (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology
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[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why should they do that?

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

In science, it is important to have verifiable and replicable results. This means everything you use - from ingredients to software - should be transparent. We can't examine Excel's source code, so we don't know if it is working as it claims to be. Most scientific disciplines are moving towards open source, open access etc., and you can't use Excel in fields like physics or mathematical biology. But molecular biology is a bit of a holdout.