Modern math

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

I am at the Excel workbook stage.

<https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>

[bill....@ieee.org]

On Sunday, February 17, 2019 at 2:20:47 PM UTC+11, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>
> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>

In my last job - at Haffmans's BV in Venlo - the computer manager wouldn't dream of letting anybody put anything but Windows on the computers he managed.

I wanted to do some number crunching, and suggested putting a Linux partition on my computer, downloading gcc so that I could write a Fortran program to do the work - an old-fashioned approach, but one that had worked for me in the past.

The computer manager regarded this as a dangerous heresy and a totally unacceptable security risk, so I did my number crunching in Excel - which was horribly tedious, but could be made to work.

I suspect that a sufficiently ingenious hacker could do bad things even if confined to Excel, but the computer manager didn't have that much imagination.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

[Mike Coon]

In article <q4aju7$qp3$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,
DecadentLinux...@decadence.org says...

>
> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>

In the UK, the Ordnance Survey offer Excel functions to convert between
their OSGB grid locations, on a transverse Mercator grid, to/from WGS84
latitude and longitude. I used them to further create KML placemark
files for display via Google Earth...

Mike.

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

søndag den 17. februar 2019 kl. 05.29.12 UTC+1 skrev bill....@ieee.org:
> On Sunday, February 17, 2019 at 2:20:47 PM UTC+11, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
> > I am at the Excel workbook stage.
> >
> > <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>
> In my last job - at Haffmans's BV in Venlo - the computer manager wouldn't dream of letting anybody put anything but Windows on the computers he managed.
>
> I wanted to do some number crunching, and suggested putting a Linux partition on my computer, downloading gcc so that I could write a Fortran program to do the work - an old-fashioned approach, but one that had worked for me in the past.
>

you don't need linux to run gcc

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 06:00:26 -0800, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

> you don't need linux to run gcc

There isn't a GCC version that runs on Windows, surely??


--
This message may be freely reproduced without limit or charge only via
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protocols constitutes acceptance of this condition.

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

søndag den 17. februar 2019 kl. 17.10.26 UTC+1 skrev Cursitor Doom:
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 06:00:26 -0800, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
>
> > you don't need linux to run gcc
>
>
> There isn't a GCC version that runs on Windows, surely??
>

cygwin or mingw

[John Larkin]

Google spreadsheet errors

One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

[John S]

On 2/16/2019 9:20 PM, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>
> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>

In what way is that surprising?

[Clifford Heath]

+1.

Cygwin if you want most unmodified *nix programs to compile and work
with minimal or no changes, Mingw if you want the fastest environment
with less *nix emulation, possibly more program changes needed.

Clifford Heath.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

Cursitor Doom <cu...@notformail.com> wrote in news:q4c11e$gj2$4@dont-
email.me:

> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 06:00:26 -0800, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
>
>> you don't need linux to run gcc
>
>
> There isn't a GCC version that runs on Windows, surely??
>
>

mingw gcc

<https://mingw-w64.org/doku.php>

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
news:u36j6ehv9dgri1tar...@4ax.com:

> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>
>>I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>
>><https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>
>
> Google spreadsheet errors
>
> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.
>
>

Sure... data input and operator errors. Not so much processing
errors.

And 90%? You really are gullible, eh?

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John S <Sop...@invalid.org> wrote in news:q4c5ve$gp$1...@dont-email.me:

For not getting it, you truly are an abject idiot.

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

on win10 you can do even better with Windows Subsystem for Linux

[bill....@ieee.org]

On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 4:24:22 AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>
> >I am at the Excel workbook stage.
> >
> ><https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>
>
> Google spreadsheet errors
>
> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.

But that estimate may be one of them.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

[bill....@ieee.org]

But I did need a less anxious computer manager before I could download anything and put it on my PC at work. The charm of Linux was that I had it on my home computer, and knew where to get what I'd need.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

[bitrex]

On 02/17/2019 12:24 PM, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>
>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>
>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>
>
> Google spreadsheet errors
>
> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.
>
>

Something like 30% of large codebases on "big name" software projects by
Google, Adobe, etc. have "copypasta errors" in code of the form like
this, a shit-headed way to compare two arrays for reverse equality:

if (array_1[9] == array_2[0] &&
array_1[8] == array_2[1] &&
array_1[7] == array_2[2] &&
array_1[6] == array_2[3] &&
array_1[5] == array_2[4] &&
array_1[4] == array_2[5] &&
etc...

(I made an error I had to go back and fix just making this small example
of the problem. Don't write this kind of code...)

[David Brown]

Be careful with your naming here - mingw-w64 is significantly different
from the original mingw, and a far better choice. Your link is to the
correct version, but the names can be confusing.

[David Brown]

Make sure it is mingw-w64, not the old mingw project. That way you get
modern tools and proper C support, instead of one that uses MS's slow
and limited C library DLL.

>
> on win10 you can do even better with Windows Subsystem for Linux
>

I haven't tried this myself (since I avoid Win10 as much as possible).

A key difference between this and the other solutions is that WSL
attempts to run native Linux executables directly, rather than running
programs compiled for Windows. That could be an advantage in some
cases, but completely misses the point when you want to use gcc to
compiler programs for Windows.

Cygwin is a fairly solid POSIX emulation layer for Windows. It emulates
things that Windows doesn't support (or doesn't support well), like
"fork" and differences in the file system. That makes it slow and
cumbersome, requires extra DLL's, it feels "alien", and software has to
be under the GPL - including anything you write yourself and compile
with its tools - unless you pay for a license. Cygwin has a huge range
of packages - as well as gcc it includes *nix utilities, X, gui
software, etc.

Mingw (the original) is a 32-bit gcc port that uses MS's C runtine
DLL's. It is closely tied with the msys project that provides Windows
ports of a range of command line tools, libraries, etc. Mingw programs
integrate much better with Windows, and are significantly more efficient
than Cygwin programs. But it is getting a bit old, and the use of MS's
C libraries makes programs slow and limited (the C libraries are mostly
C90 only).

Mingw-w64 is a fork and update that can make 32-bit and 64-bit Windows
binaries, and uses modern, statically linked C libraries. It is tied
with the msys2 project.

If you want to use a proper, modern C (and C++, Fortran, Ada, etc.)
compiler for Windows, you want mingw-w64 gcc. Don't bother with the old
mingw project, and don't bother with Cygwin (if you need that level of
POSIX compatibility, use a POSIX system, not Windows).

[Martin Brown]

On 17/02/2019 17:24, John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>
>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>
>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>
> Google spreadsheet errors

Although that might be true most of the errors in common spreadsheets
are of no consequence such as a random bit of text in an unused cell.

The great thing about spreadsheets is that they have entirely different
systematic errors to a procedural computer language so that if you use a
spreadsheet to generate test data it is highly unlikely that you will
make a serious mistake on indexing.

> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.

That is favourable when compared to the 99.999% of non-trivial
conventional software that contains at least one defect.

I have seen some truly horrific spreadsheets that have grown like topsy
over the years and become utterly labyrinthine tangles of spaghetti.
Accounts departments tend to harbour the worst offending stuff.

You can do some very sophisticated data analysis in Excel if you don't
mind waiting a while. The only thing to watch is that some of the more
esoteric special functions are themselves flawed as is the random number
generator which is definitely *NOT* what the Excel documentation claims
it is (and at one point produced negative numbers in the range 0-1).

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~bdm25/excel-rng.pdf

This is probably the worst bug in Excel and has been there almost
forever - their random number implementation is incorrect. That is the
code is not an implementation of Wichmann-Hill as claimed since 2003.

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~bdm25/excel-rng.pdf

It was still wrong in Excel 2013. I haven't tried any more recent
versions. It isn't a good idea to do Monte-Carlo simulations with an RNG
of unknown provenance and unproven behaviour.

Random algorithms do not random numbers make.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[David Brown]

On 18/02/2019 10:21, Martin Brown wrote:
> On 17/02/2019 17:24, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
>> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>>
>>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>>
>>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>>
>> Google    spreadsheet errors
>
> Although that might be true most of the errors in common spreadsheets
> are of no consequence such as a random bit of text in an unused cell.
>
> The great thing about spreadsheets is that they have entirely different
> systematic errors to a procedural computer language so that if you use a
> spreadsheet to generate test data it is highly unlikely that you will
> make a serious mistake on indexing.
>
>> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.
>
> That is favourable when compared to the 99.999% of non-trivial
> conventional software that contains at least one defect.

63.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot with no evidence. That
applies to both of these.

>
> I have seen some truly horrific spreadsheets that have grown like topsy
> over the years and become utterly labyrinthine tangles of spaghetti.
> Accounts departments tend to harbour the worst offending stuff.
>
> You can do some very sophisticated data analysis in Excel if you don't
> mind waiting a while. The only thing to watch is that some of the more
> esoteric special functions are themselves flawed as is the random number
> generator which is definitely *NOT* what the Excel documentation claims
> it is (and at one point produced negative numbers in the range 0-1).
>
> http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~bdm25/excel-rng.pdf
>
> This is probably the worst bug in Excel and has been there almost
> forever - their random number implementation is incorrect. That is the
> code is not an implementation of Wichmann-Hill as claimed since 2003.
>
> http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~bdm25/excel-rng.pdf
>
> It was still wrong in Excel 2013. I haven't tried any more recent
> versions. It isn't a good idea to do Monte-Carlo simulations with an RNG
> of unknown provenance and unproven behaviour.
>
> Random algorithms do not random numbers make.
>

Agreed.

But I am not convinced that it is the worse bug in Excel - there are so
many to choose from. A classic one is the fictional leap year in 1900.
While that does not affect many people, MS's bullying, bribery and
blackmail process of getting ISO certification for their absurd "OOXML"
formats meant they forced through this fabrication as an ISO standard
for bug-for-bug compatibility.

For most (but not all) purposes, I find LibreOffice Calc outclasses
Excel easily - it is simply more logical and less quirky.

[Martin Brown]

On 18/02/2019 09:56, David Brown wrote:
> On 18/02/2019 10:21, Martin Brown wrote:
>> On 17/02/2019 17:24, John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
>>> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>>>
>>>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>>>
>>> Google    spreadsheet errors
>>
>> Although that might be true most of the errors in common spreadsheets
>> are of no consequence such as a random bit of text in an unused cell.
>>
>> The great thing about spreadsheets is that they have entirely different
>> systematic errors to a procedural computer language so that if you use a
>> spreadsheet to generate test data it is highly unlikely that you will
>> make a serious mistake on indexing.
>>
>>> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.
>>
>> That is favourable when compared to the 99.999% of non-trivial
>> conventional software that contains at least one defect.
>
> 63.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot with no evidence. That
> applies to both of these.

Actually no. The vast majority of non-trivial conventional software does
on average have at least one bug hiding in it. Anything longer than
about 900 lines of code has a bug expectation value of over unity.

https://www.developer.com/tech/article.php/10923_3644656_2/Software-Quality-Metrics.htm


Figure 3.1

Often it it lurks in the error recovery code from some rare event that
never gets properly exercised during final testing. The first time it
happens all hell breaks out.

The minimum is somewhere around 500 lines where the expectation value is
about 1/2 so roughly around half the code of that length is bug free.

I am a fan of McCabes CCI which also gets a mention further down that
page. It doesn't tell you where the bugs are but it can tell you if a
routine is so complicated that bugs are likely to be lurking and allows
you to compute the minimum number of test cases to traverse every path.

Word is the MicroSoft product that I truly hate with a vengeance. I have
seen so many completely insane things happen with that rats nest the
funniest being exponential growth of documents containing images that
are edited with different versions many times in a corporate setting.

I have variously used supercalc, 123 and other spreadsheets for creating
test data. They all have the advantage of being a very different way of
doing things which helps avoid a lot of common fence post type errors.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[John S]

I DO get it. You have a job and very little math skills. Not surprising.

[David Brown]

On 18/02/2019 11:49, Martin Brown wrote:
> On 18/02/2019 09:56, David Brown wrote:
>> On 18/02/2019 10:21, Martin Brown wrote:
>>> On 17/02/2019 17:24, John Larkin wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
>>>> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>>>>
>>>>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>>>>
>>>> Google    spreadsheet errors
>>>
>>> Although that might be true most of the errors in common spreadsheets
>>> are of no consequence such as a random bit of text in an unused cell.
>>>
>>> The great thing about spreadsheets is that they have entirely different
>>> systematic errors to a procedural computer language so that if you use a
>>> spreadsheet to generate test data it is highly unlikely that you will
>>> make a serious mistake on indexing.
>>>
>>>> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.
>>>
>>> That is favourable when compared to the 99.999% of non-trivial
>>> conventional software that contains at least one defect.
>>
>> 63.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot with no evidence.  That
>> applies to both of these.
>
> Actually no. The vast majority of non-trivial conventional software does
> on average have at least one bug hiding in it. Anything longer than
> about 900 lines of code has a bug expectation value of over unity.
>
> https://www.developer.com/tech/article.php/10923_3644656_2/Software-Quality-Metrics.htm
>

I entirely agree that a great (too great) proportion of non-trivial
conventional software has at defects - but the 99.999% number is made up
on the spot, without backing.

In some areas at least, defect rates are going down as people put more
effort into quality control. In particular, unit testing can help
significantly - you break your code into smaller parts that are well
tested, which can dramatically reduce the risk of some kinds of defects.
(It is of less value for integration and "long range" defects, and does
not help at all against defects in the specifications.)

I can't tell you any real figures here, but I /can/ tell you that the
99.999% figure is not real.

>>
>> But I am not convinced that it is the worse bug in Excel - there are so
>> many to choose from.  A classic one is the fictional leap year in 1900.
>>   While that does not affect many people, MS's bullying, bribery and
>> blackmail process of getting ISO certification for their absurd "OOXML"
>> formats meant they forced through this fabrication as an ISO standard
>> for bug-for-bug compatibility.
>>
>> For most (but not all) purposes, I find LibreOffice Calc outclasses
>> Excel easily - it is simply more logical and less quirky.
>
> Word is the MicroSoft product that I truly hate with a vengeance. I have
> seen so many completely insane things happen with that rats nest the
> funniest being exponential growth of documents containing images that
> are edited with different versions many times in a corporate setting.

I am not sure who would win in a competition of the MS product I hate
most. I am not a Word fan either. (Again, LibreOffice is better in
many ways.)

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John S <Sop...@invalid.org> wrote in

news:q4ebuj$5s2$1...@dont-email.me:

> On 2/17/2019 4:26 PM, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org
> wrote:
>> John S <Sop...@invalid.org> wrote in
>> news:q4c5ve$gp$1...@dont-email.me:
>>
>>> On 2/16/2019 9:20 PM, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org
>>> wrote:
>>>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>>>
>>>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>>>>
>>>
>>> In what way is that surprising?
>>>
>>
>> For not getting it, you truly are an abject idiot.
>>
>
> I DO get it.

No, you have no clue whatsoever, in fact.

> You have a job and very little math skills.

No, you have no clue whatsoever.

> Not
> surprising.
>

You obviously, decidedly do NOT 'get it'. The chrono terminus point
is a progressive track. I do not expect a putz like you to be able
to grasp that premise either, however.

One step at a time. That is how real men go through life. A
dumbfuck like you obviously does not, nor can not qualify as a real
man. You are too busy crafting immature, lame, petty jab attempts,
like this one was. Grow up, little boy.

[gnuarm.del...@gmail.com]

Was this data processed by a spread sheet or "non-trivial conventional software"?

Isn't a spread sheet program "non-trivial conventional software"?

That's a good point. I have often reflected on the nature of test benches in HDL which often rely on the same assumptions of understanding of the requirements as the code being tested if not the same code itself.

I would often test modules like UARTs against itself which doesn't mean it will work with other systems and in one case it failed to uncover a difficult to track down newbie coder bug. lol

Rick C.

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

mandag den 18. februar 2019 kl. 09.35.47 UTC+1 skrev David Brown:
> On 17/02/2019 23:43, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
> > søndag den 17. februar 2019 kl. 23.06.41 UTC+1 skrev Clifford Heath:
> >> On 18/2/19 3:45 am, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
> >>> søndag den 17. februar 2019 kl. 17.10.26 UTC+1 skrev Cursitor Doom:
> >>>> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 06:00:26 -0800, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> you don't need linux to run gcc
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> There isn't a GCC version that runs on Windows, surely??
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> cygwin or mingw
> >>
> >> +1.
> >>
> >> Cygwin if you want most unmodified *nix programs to compile and work
> >> with minimal or no changes, Mingw if you want the fastest environment
> >> with less *nix emulation, possibly more program changes needed.
> >>
>
> Make sure it is mingw-w64, not the old mingw project. That way you get
> modern tools and proper C support, instead of one that uses MS's slow
> and limited C library DLL.
>
> >
> > on win10 you can do even better with Windows Subsystem for Linux
> >
>
> I haven't tried this myself (since I avoid Win10 as much as possible).
>
> A key difference between this and the other solutions is that WSL
> attempts to run native Linux executables directly, rather than running
> programs compiled for Windows. That could be an advantage in some
> cases, but completely misses the point when you want to use gcc to
> compiler programs for Windows.
>

yes, WSL is bascially the same as running a linux in a virtual machine

[Robert Baer]

John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>
>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>
>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>
>
> Google spreadsheet errors
>
> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.
>
>

...and the errors are mostly due to those funny 6-legged thinggies found
dead between the Excel relay contacts..

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 09:21:39 +0000, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>On 17/02/2019 17:24, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
>> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>>
>>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>>
>>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>>
>> Google spreadsheet errors
>
>Although that might be true most of the errors in common spreadsheets
>are of no consequence such as a random bit of text in an unused cell.
>
>The great thing about spreadsheets is that they have entirely different
>systematic errors to a procedural computer language so that if you use a
>spreadsheet to generate test data it is highly unlikely that you will
>make a serious mistake on indexing.
>
>> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.
>
>That is favourable when compared to the 99.999% of non-trivial
>conventional software that contains at least one defect.
>
>I have seen some truly horrific spreadsheets that have grown like topsy
>over the years and become utterly labyrinthine tangles of spaghetti.
>Accounts departments tend to harbour the worst offending stuff.

And probably not well commented.

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 09:21:39 +0000, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>On 17/02/2019 17:24, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 03:20:40 +0000 (UTC),
>> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>>
>>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>>
>>> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>>
>> Google spreadsheet errors
>
>Although that might be true most of the errors in common spreadsheets
>are of no consequence such as a random bit of text in an unused cell.
>
>The great thing about spreadsheets is that they have entirely different
>systematic errors to a procedural computer language so that if you use a
>spreadsheet to generate test data it is highly unlikely that you will
>make a serious mistake on indexing.
>
>> One estimate is that 90% of spreadsheets have at least one error.
>
>That is favourable when compared to the 99.999% of non-trivial
>conventional software that contains at least one defect.
>
>I have seen some truly horrific spreadsheets that have grown like topsy
>over the years and become utterly labyrinthine tangles of spaghetti.
>Accounts departments tend to harbour the worst offending stuff.

And probably not well commented.

[Jasen Betts]

On 2019-02-18, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:

> But I am not convinced that it is the worse bug in Excel - there are so
> many to choose from. A classic one is the fictional leap year in 1900.

> While that does not affect many people, MS's bullying, bribery and
> blackmail process of getting ISO certification for their absurd "OOXML"
> formats meant they forced through this fabrication as an ISO standard
> for bug-for-bug compatibility.

Don't blame microsoft unfairly, It's broken that way for compatability
with "Lotus-1,2,3"

> For most (but not all) purposes, I find LibreOffice Calc outclasses
> Excel easily - it is simply more logical and less quirky.

I prefer gnumeric myself

--
When I tried casting out nines I made a hash of it.

[David Brown]

On 19/02/2019 09:59, Jasen Betts wrote:
> On 2019-02-18, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>
>> But I am not convinced that it is the worse bug in Excel - there are so
>> many to choose from. A classic one is the fictional leap year in 1900.
>
>> While that does not affect many people, MS's bullying, bribery and
>> blackmail process of getting ISO certification for their absurd "OOXML"
>> formats meant they forced through this fabrication as an ISO standard
>> for bug-for-bug compatibility.
>
> Don't blame microsoft unfairly, It's broken that way for compatability
> with "Lotus-1,2,3"

Of course I blame MS for that. They should not have copied the bug -
they should have had it as a per-spreadsheet compatibility option for
import from 1, 2, 3. They may not have been the origin of the bug, but
they /are/ to blame for their mishandling of it and perpetuating it.

[Reinhardt Behm]

Not well? Not at all!

--
Reinhardt

[John Larkin]

Exactly. Commenting is a valuable part of procedural programming, or
HDL programs, and spreadsheets are seldom (never?) commented. Probably
seldom checked.

Ignorant question from someone who doesn't use Excel: how do you
control in which order the math is done?

[John Larkin]

My guys, when they do a simple experiment, type a mess of numbers into
a spreadsheet and plot graphs. I just make dots on graph paper with a
pencil in real time, as I'm doing the experiment. I win on time.

My graphs have added stuff: my name, date, graph title, part numbers,
schematic scribbles, namely context.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/upyl9x6nqoq1nd9/BFT25.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/elgjas3xxixf9r2/BCX70J_curve.jpg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d0phea7hkn0l3qu/DSC01861.JPG?dl=0

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:k0ao6etigedhjcq2c...@4ax.com:

It depends on what you are trying to use the workbook to do.
Spreadsheet programs are good at storing and post processing
collected data.

Since it is in the form of tables and 'cells' and not in the form
of a written program where each step is determined by the program
code, it has no way of knowing what you want to happen in a
particular order.

If you are talking about simple formula execution rules, then you
need to simply be able to analyze each excel function yourself at
the time you intend to begin using it to process your data with.
If you cannot do that, not only are you not a math peron as you so
often claim to be, but you are also lacking in diagnostic skills and
other skills needed to evaluate the tools you use.

DUH!

[John Larkin]

Not knowing order of cell execution makes a spreadsheet useless for
anything much more than bookkeeping, and I hate bookkeeping.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:hoao6ettosi00mt2v...@4ax.com:

My test sheets were graph plots of the ranges and scales, and the
tester placed the points on the graph in real time. Transferring
later to the actual spreadsheet to print out and present at the
meeting looking very nice and precisely compiled.

I win... on time... acuuracy... presentation, and data
retention for post processes. ISO certified.

You... yeah... John... You are 'certifiable'.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:4ebo6e9nj7nem3d34...@4ax.com:

> Not knowing order of cell execution makes a spreadsheet useless for
> anything much more than bookkeeping, and I hate bookkeeping.
>

You are a ture idiot. And you would not even rate the skill level of
an entry level bookkeeper.

You quite obviously have no clue how a spreadsheet operates, much
less how to use one to advance your company.

[John Larkin]

Transferring data into a spreadsheet and plotting and making
PowerPoints or whatever obviously wastes time. My graph is done when
the hardware testing is done. I can mark a point on a graph a lot
faster than you can type a mess of numbers into a horror of a
Microsoft mess. In a thermal experiment, which is inherently slow, my
added plot time is zero.

I send my hand-drawn graphs, and whiteboard sketches, to potential
customers. They seem to like them. Most everybody is sick of
"presentations." Some people can't think without Excel and PowerPoint.



ps - Excel is hardly "Modern math." Visicalc was invented for people
who can't program.

[Martin Brown]

I mostly use spreadsheets as scratchpad tools for quick models to test
out ideas. They are incredibly handy for creating test datasets or doing
a sanity check on what an existing program claims to be doing.

Accounts departments seem to specialise in huge spreadsheets that have
no discernable architecture at all beyond "its all in there somewhere".

> Ignorant question from someone who doesn't use Excel: how do you
> control in which order the math is done?

Short answer is that you don't. Though most do compute from top left to
bottom right by default if you force a full recalculation. It has to
work no matter which order the computation is run and there should be no
circular dependencies at all. Normally when a cell is altered only its
dependencies are recomputed and the cascade that results from them.

It means that if you want to iterate to solve some numerical equation
you have to tabulate all the intermediate function evaluations and then
predict the next value of x to try on the next line down.


You can force manual mode where the updates only occur when you force a
recalculation. Handy if you are inputting a lot of data into cells.

Some of the older spreadsheets would permit circular references and run
from top left to bottom right. You could program life in those.

It all got a lot more hairy when multiple threads came along and you
could sometimes get race conditions between creating a chart and
plotting the points on it programmatically (an early bug in XL2007).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2019 16:31:42 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

>John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
>news:4ebo6e9nj7nem3d34...@4ax.com:
>
>> Not knowing order of cell execution makes a spreadsheet useless for
>> anything much more than bookkeeping, and I hate bookkeeping.
>>
>
>You are a ture idiot. And you would not even rate the skill level of
>an entry level bookkeeper.

No argument there. I took engineering in college, not accounting. I
hire bookkeepers. I haven't done a tax return or balanced a checkbook
in 30 years.

>
> You quite obviously have no clue how a spreadsheet operates, much
>less how to use one to advance your company.

I've used spreadsheets (a long time ago) and decided that they are
dumb and dangerous. I write programs, or get other people to write
programs. Or use Spice. I mostly design electronics. That's supposed
to be our topic here.

LT Spice can do useful math, and graph things, and you do control
execution order. The "program" is a lot more visible, and can be
better commented, than a spreadsheet.

My production people use spreadsheets, but mostly for record keeping.

[gnuarm.del...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 11:31:48 AM UTC-5, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
> John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
> news:4ebo6e9nj7nem3d34...@4ax.com:
>
> > Not knowing order of cell execution makes a spreadsheet useless for
> > anything much more than bookkeeping, and I hate bookkeeping.
> >
>
> You are a ture idiot. And you would not even rate the skill level of
> an entry level bookkeeper.

Once you have figured that out, why waste time trying to convince him of it?

> You quite obviously have no clue how a spreadsheet operates, much
> less how to use one to advance your company.

Why worry about it? His company is doing fine because his taxes are lower. Now he can make more money by doing less thinking.

Rick C.

[habib]

Le 17/02/2019 à 04:20, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org a écrit :
> I am at the Excel workbook stage.

Excel is far under elementary school level ; stay at a decent level with
hand made calculus and wxMaxima/Octave
>
> <https://imgur.com/gallery/b6OIR3g>
>

[Cursitor Doom]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 08:17:20 -0800, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

> yes, WSL is bascially the same as running a linux in a virtual machine

No way I'd ever let Windows run a Linux VM on any hardware I own! Just
*maybe* the other way round, perhaps. MAYBE.




--
This message may be freely reproduced without limit or charge only via
the Usenet protocol. Reproduction in whole or part through other
protocols, whether for profit or not, is conditional upon a charge of
GBP10.00 per reproduction. Publication in this manner via non-Usenet
protocols constitutes acceptance of this condition.

[Carl]

"Martin Brown" wrote in message news:q4hbv9$1b19$1...@gioia.aioe.org...

Or you could use the "Goal Seek" function, that's what it is there for.
Create an input cell with an initial guess and a formula cell that does
something with the input cell, select Goal Seek from the menu (or find it
lost in a ribbon, if you can, I hate that UI), tell it the input cell and
the output cell and the target output value, and it will iterate changing
the input until it gets the desired output.

>
>
>You can force manual mode where the updates only occur when you force a
>recalculation. Handy if you are inputting a lot of data into cells.
>
>Some of the older spreadsheets would permit circular references and run
>from top left to bottom right. You could program life in those.
>
>It all got a lot more hairy when multiple threads came along and you could
>sometimes get race conditions between creating a chart and plotting the
>points on it programmatically (an early bug in XL2007).
>

--
Regards,

Carl Ijames

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:psbo6e1on5kqa0vlc...@4ax.com:

> Transferring data into a spreadsheet and plotting and making
> PowerPoints or whatever obviously wastes time. My graph is done when
> the hardware testing is done.

Sorry, stupid punk, but my basic, simple Fluke DMM pipes data
straight into a computer as I take the reading as does many other
electronic instruments we use in the engineering lab.

You are behind the times, chump.

You "obviously waste time" because you have no clue what our nation has
come up with over the last 40 years. You are fucking in the dark, save
for your own little Johnny boy world where even there you are far from
being king in that realm as well.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:psbo6e1on5kqa0vlc...@4ax.com:

> I can mark a point on a graph a lot
> faster than you can type a mess of numbers into a horror of a
> Microsoft mess. I

You obviously can't read either.

I said that I print out a BLANK graph and fill it in real time,
just like you, you punk motherfucker. EXCEPT MINE LOOKS BETTER and
is far more accurate, and if I took the readings with the right
meters, my computer already has the numbers as well. THEN the
printed as opposed to real time plot looks even better still. And I
then have the original hand plotted form from the bench, and the
piped data from the meers directly to the PC.

You are a fucking punk, at best. You are jealous of MicroSoft.

I have probably been collecting data longer than you have been
claiming to be an engineer. I've certainly been collecting it
better than you do.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:psbo6e1on5kqa0vlc...@4ax.com:

> In a thermal experiment, which is inherently slow, my
> added plot time is zero.
>

You are an idiot. That case is where your crybaby bullshit about
time spent is even more insignificant. Yer a joke, son.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:psbo6e1on5kqa0vlc...@4ax.com:

> I send my hand-drawn graphs, and whiteboard sketches, to potential
> customers. They seem to like them. Most everybody is sick of
> "presentations." Some people can't think without Excel and
> PowerPoint.
>
>

I never said a goddamned thing about powerpoint.

My production line travellers and test data sheets are the hard copy
requisites some military and many commercial contracts carry. Upon
some of those pages are blank plot diagrams where the UUT data is
recorded by the technician, in real time.

You are a complete dork.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:q4hbv9$1b19$1...@gioia.aioe.org:

> Accounts departments seem to specialise in huge spreadsheets that
> have no discernable architecture at all beyond "its all in there
> somewhere".
>

Look at this (DVD) movie database spreadsheet (best in existence):

<http://www.hometheaterinfo.com/dvdlist.htm>

It is quite well done, and a bit backward compliant.

Whereas my DL'd and converted to new MSO2017 format workbook is
smaller and searches faster as it is all on one worksheet.

I also add a column for whether or not I own it.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:q4hbv9$1b19$1...@gioia.aioe.org:

I wonder if I can get it to do various depth mandelbrot array
calculations.

This bash script is the best one I have seen for the command line.

Posted here only a couple of these lines wrapped so give it a once
over before you try to run it.

Quote bash script for mandelbrot generation:

#!/bin/bash -i
# Draws a mandelbrot set.
# Author: Benjamin Staffin
#
# Simulates floating point by using big integers. Flagrantly uses
two integers
# instead of complex numbers. I couldn't be arsed to calculate
infinity limits
# of logarithmic functions in bash, so this just uses escape time
values for
# colors.
#
# Algorithm reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set#For_programmers
# Colors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#Colors

L=128 # Iteration limit. Even on a 238x61 terminal, 99 is plenty.
P=100000000
Q=$(( P/100 ))
X=$(( Q*320 / ($COLUMNS-1) ))
Y=$(( Q*210 / $LINES ))
y=$(( Q*-105 ))
v=$(( Q*-220 ))
x=$v

# "pixel" 0,0 is the top-left corner of our character grid.

# Outer loop: lines (y values)
while (( y<105*Q )); do

# Inner loop: columns (x values)
while (( x<P )); do
(( a=b=i=c=0 ))
while (( a*a + b*b < 4*P**2 && i++ < L )); do
(( c=a,
a=(a**2 - b**2)/P + x,
b=2*b*c/P + y ))
done

# Color selection via escape values.
# We stop at $L iterations, so this sets the color of the
"lake":
if (( i >= L )); then j=0; else (( j=i%16 )); fi

# k controls regular vs bright colors.
if (( j>7 )); then (( k=1, j-= 8 )); else k=0; fi

# ANSI SGR color codes start at 30, hence j+30 here:
printf "\E[$k;$((j+30))m#"

(( x+=X )) # okay, next...
done
printf '\E[0m'

(( x=v, y+=Y )) # On to the next line!
done

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

habib <h.bouazi...@free.fr> wrote in
news:5c6c3e40$0$5595$426a...@news.free.fr:

> Le 17/02/2019 à 04:20, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org a
> écrit :
>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>
> Excel is far under elementary school level

Pretty much not true at all.

>; stay at a decent
> level

"I dreamed I was swimming with dolphins whispering imaginary
numbers and searching for the fourth dimension." --Tito, Stand and
Deliver

>with hand made calculus and wxMaxima/Octave

You ain't real bright.

"Look at the stars!" --Michael Brace, Brainstorm

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

Cursitor Doom <cu...@notformail.com> wrote in
news:q4hikg$bq6$5...@dont-email.me:

> On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 08:17:20 -0800, Lasse Langwadt Christensen
> wrote:
>
>> yes, WSL is bascially the same as running a linux in a virtual
>> machine
>
> No way I'd ever let Windows run a Linux VM on any hardware I own!
> Just *maybe* the other way round, perhaps. MAYBE.
>
>
>
>

xnews (this client) is a Windows application.

What makes you think, however, that I am running it from a windows
session?

Well, even under Linux boot and wine, I guess it is "a Windows
session". Hahaha...

The point is you can't tell. There is no linux version of xnews,
so the only reason to run it under wine under linux would be liking
it better than the linux news clients.

That proves it... I am currently under Windows. ;-) (moral:
xnews sucks)

[John Larkin]

That needs a Fluke, comm cable, PC, software. All I need is a Fluke
and a piece of paper. Faster and easier.

The Fluke won't acquire inputs, like temperature or supply voltages,
nor will it acquire voltage and current simultaneously unless you add
some sort of scanner. More stuff to program.

Graphs have two axes and often multiple things to plot.

Sometimes we automate this stuff, with an SMU or two and a scanner and
a DVM or a VME ADC module and a bunch of Python, but that's a project.
I can solder a part to a proto board and make a graph in minutes.

Two Flukes get me voltage and current. Sometimes a thermocouple meter
too. Power supplies to set. That's a lot to interface.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2019 20:08:12 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

>John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
>news:psbo6e1on5kqa0vlc...@4ax.com:
>
>> I can mark a point on a graph a lot
>> faster than you can type a mess of numbers into a horror of a
>> Microsoft mess. I
>
> You obviously can't read either.
>
> I said that I print out a BLANK graph and fill it in real time,
>just like you, you punk motherfucker. EXCEPT MINE LOOKS BETTER and
>is far more accurate, and if I took the readings with the right
>meters, my computer already has the numbers as well. THEN the
>printed as opposed to real time plot looks even better still. And I
>then have the original hand plotted form from the bench, and the
>piped data from the meers directly to the PC.

Original hand plotted form? What's that?

>
> You are a fucking punk, at best. You are jealous of MicroSoft.
>
> I have probably been collecting data longer than you have been
>claiming to be an engineer. I've certainly been collecting it
>better than you do.

I designed my first product for pay, a radiation counter, when I was
in high school.

How about you?

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

[John Larkin]

All our production testing is automated and pushes test data and a PDF
test report into a database. We need to do that for many reasons.
Nobody takes data on clipboards. Sometimes they might type in
something, like a power supply current, but we try to automate stuff
like that too.

But I'm not a test tech, I'm an engineer.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2019 16:47:38 +0000, Martin Brown

That all sounds repulsive and dangerous and un-maintainable for
serious engineering.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote in
news:s4ro6etfl7ua3ssfg...@4ax.com:

> That needs a Fluke, comm cable, PC, software. All I need is a Fluke
> and a piece of paper. Faster and easier.
>

You don't get it. I STILL plot points BY hand on a graph on my
clipboard at the bench, just like you do, Johnny Rotten.

Damn, you are illiterate, boy.

And by the way that decidedly means that you are as slow as fuck.
Your deliberately applied tunnel vision is probably an order of
magnitude more stupid than any of the stupid shit our CIC has pulled...
so far. You are both running neck and neck though.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote in
news:s4ro6etfl7ua3ssfg...@4ax.com:

> The Fluke won't acquire inputs, like temperature or supply voltages,
> nor will it acquire voltage and current simultaneously unless you add
> some sort of scanner. More stuff to program.
>

You're an idiot.

I can record ANY reading at ANY moment including the moment I take
it. 'Record' means that an entry gets added to the receiving
computer's cell array.

So, just like you, I use TWO flukes, you stupid twerp, and both
reading get recorded, JUST LIKE YOU DO. No scanner required.

Wake the fuck up, you retarded twit.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote in
news:s4ro6etfl7ua3ssfg...@4ax.com:

> Graphs have two axes and often multiple things to plot.
>

Hey, Johnny... can you really be that fucking Donald J. Trump level
insultingly stupid?

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote in
news:s4ro6etfl7ua3ssfg...@4ax.com:

> Two Flukes get me voltage and current.

No shit, Sherlock.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote in

news:6qro6elpre6h39pjv...@4ax.com:

> Original hand plotted form? What's that?
>

Damn, boy, you are fucking thick!

I PRINT a BLANK GRAPH WITH AXIS MARKERS on it.

I then go to the bench and PLOT the data points on the graph with a
PENCIL, JUST LIKE YOU DO, YOU STUPID FUCLKTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote in
news:6qro6elpre6h39pjv...@4ax.com:

> I designed my first product for pay, a radiation counter, when I was
> in high school.
>
> How about you?
>

You got paid to assemble daddy's design?

It was your build, Johnny... but your design? I have serious
doubts.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote in

news:e8so6et4a83s5b7fo...@4ax.com:

> That all sounds repulsive and dangerous and un-maintainable for
> serious engineering.

You are a seriously self brain farted dumbfuck, broken for life.

Why don't you diss the space program some more, dipshit?

[habib]

Le 19/02/2019 à 21:31, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org a écrit :
> habib <h.bouazi...@free.fr> wrote in
> news:5c6c3e40$0$5595$426a...@news.free.fr:
>

>> Le 17/02/2019 à 04:20, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org a
>> écrit :

>>> I am at the Excel workbook stage.
>>
>> Excel is far under elementary school level
>
> Pretty much not true at all.
>
>> ; stay at a decent
>> level
>
> "I dreamed I was swimming with dolphins whispering imaginary
> numbers and searching for the fourth dimension." --Tito, Stand and
> Deliver
>
>> with hand made calculus and wxMaxima/Octave
>
> You ain't real bright.

Only enough for doing math a little

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2/19/19 1:41 PM, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 08:17:20 -0800, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
>
>> yes, WSL is bascially the same as running a linux in a virtual machine
>
> No way I'd ever let Windows run a Linux VM on any hardware I own! Just
> *maybe* the other way round, perhaps. MAYBE.
>
>
>
>

Qubes OS is a Xen distribution that handles Linux, Windows, and other
systems. The VMs have tightly controlled access to each other (nearly
none by default).

I used to use a Win7 VM until I figured out how to run all the apps I
care about in Wine.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

[Clifford Heath]

How awful. This on the other hand, is awesome:

<https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set>

Standard SQL2008.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

Clifford Heath <no....@please.net> wrote in
news:ni0bE.35066$vJ2....@fx44.iad:

You're an idiot. Did you run it?

It is full color. Unlike your piece of shit code.

This on the other hand, is awesome:
>
> <https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set>
>
> Standard SQL2008.

Wow... a total of six monochrome characters.
>
Mine also polls the array size of the terminal it is run under and
operates the mandel array within that. Your POS doesn't get
anywhere close to having ANY sophistication.

Lame. No... Very lame.

[Phil Hobbs]

A complete nightmare--poorly specified, and next to impossible to debug
any nontrivial application. That was my conclusion when I last tried to
do any real calculation on a spreadsheet--VisiCalc for DOS 1.x, circa
1983. I still have to look at various people's .csv files, and
occasionally use a spreadsheet program to do that. But not usually.

[John Larkin]

Then why do you need Excel?

Do you get the numeric values for Excel by reading the hand-drawn
graph? To how many decimal places?

One problem with hand-drawn graphs is a human tendency to fudge the
points to make a nice curve.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

[John Larkin]

The design was mine. I was working summers in the physics lab at the
University of New Orleans, for 50 cents per hour.

The design was all tubes, which made sense since the counter used five
circular-electrode gas-filled dacatron tubes. They were cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekatron

I designed some solid-state stuff that summer too, for a Mössbauer
experiment, and a tube-based kilovolt pulser for microwave
spectroscopy.

I learned a lot.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

[John Larkin]

My wife is reading a book written by an ISS astronaut. It sounds
really gross. He complains about the pointless make-work "science"
experiments too.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

[gnuarm.del...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 4:10:12 PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Feb 2019 20:12:20 +0000 (UTC),
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>
> >John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
> >news:psbo6e1on5kqa0vlc...@4ax.com:
> >
> >> I send my hand-drawn graphs, and whiteboard sketches, to potential
> >> customers. They seem to like them. Most everybody is sick of
> >> "presentations." Some people can't think without Excel and
> >> PowerPoint.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > I never said a goddamned thing about powerpoint.
> >
> > My production line travellers and test data sheets are the hard copy
> >requisites some military and many commercial contracts carry. Upon
> >some of those pages are blank plot diagrams where the UUT data is
> >recorded by the technician, in real time.
> >
>
> All our production testing is automated and pushes test data and a PDF
> test report into a database. We need to do that for many reasons.
> Nobody takes data on clipboards. Sometimes they might type in
> something, like a power supply current, but we try to automate stuff
> like that too.
>
> But I'm not a test tech, I'm an engineer.

There are a very large number of titles you are NOT! LOL

Actually, I think the most fun I ever had was testing array processors. They used ECL gate arrays and at the time ran faster than anything other than a Cray. Some of the machine was very complex with schematics that had boxes with inscriptions that read "who knows what this does". lol

It was fun though and ECL was actually easier to debug than TTL because many problems could be found by analyzing the voltages... or something like that. Since every line had terminations it showed a lot of faults more clearly. I don't recall the details, but it was fun. I got pretty good at it until they asked me to design an I/O processor board. That was fun too, but I got a lot more managing which is never fun. I learned a lot about some of the bit slice sequencer chips which is what they used in the I/O boards. In order to add a very complete self test capability I extended the assembler and got yelled at for that. Jeez!

Rick C.

[Clifford Heath]

If you think using $COLUMNS and $LINES, spitting ANSI escape sequences,
and writing yet another procedural implementation of Mandelbrot is
sophisticated, there's really no hope for you. JL seems to share your
idea that only procedural code is really code.

The point about Excel and SQL is that they are pure functional
languages; they describe the result to be computed and let the machine
figure out how.

Clifford Heath.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:shhp6edqgtrvrhapp...@4ax.com:

> One problem with hand-drawn graphs is a human tendency to fudge the
> points to make a nice curve.
>

Yet you were touting your capacity to make one as being so much
better.

I plot actual metrology data.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:6nhp6ehla79figd8l...@4ax.com:

Well, you lost something in the unending learning arena.

I learn every day and I do not diss the rest of the world, and I
never claim to have learned it all.

Dopes like you bring out the worst in me. Because you stopped
learning decades ago when you thought at some point that you knew it
all.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

Clifford Heath <no....@please.net> wrote in

news:9S4bE.86337$Q22....@fx13.iad:

You really are an idiot. There are a few ASCII CLI mandelbrot
code scripts out there. They are in no way meant to compete with
real, high resolution graphical mandelbrot generators, you stupid
fuck. But as bash scripts go, it is a pretty good array generator.

> JL
> seems to share your idea that only procedural code is really code.
>

You have no clue what "my ideas" are.

Dumbass... It is not the best mandel code. It is the best ASCII
generator.

I have seen some very high resolution deep mandelbrot zooms.

You are an idiot to think that I was talking about the mandelbrot
code.

It is a bash script.

Write a better bash script based ASCII mandelbrot array, asshole.

> The point about Excel and SQL is that they are pure functional
> languages; they describe the result to be computed and let the
> machine figure out how.

I was making an imaginary number joke.

You are an imaginary number joke.

SQL? Gimmie a break, dork.

[Martin Brown]

On 19/02/2019 19:42, Carl wrote:
> "Martin Brown"  wrote in message news:q4hbv9$1b19$1...@gioia.aioe.org...

> Or you could use the "Goal Seek" function, that's what it is there for.
> Create an input cell with an initial guess and a formula cell that does
> something with the input cell, select Goal Seek from the menu (or find
> it lost in a ribbon, if you can, I hate that UI), tell it the input cell
> and the output cell and the target output value, and it will iterate
> changing the input until it gets the desired output.

Solver from the addins is more general but even then it doesn't always
converge on the right answer unless the starting guess is very good
indeed (at least with more difficult non-linear fitting problems).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Martin Brown]

It is a powerful tool and the important thing about it is that it is a
completely different way of casting the problem to a conventional
programming language so that it has very different systematic errors.

Fencepost errors are extremely rare in well constructed spreadsheets but
are incredibly common in procedural languages.

Excel is quite handy for looking at modest (by today's standards)
experimental datasets - although many universities get a discount on IDL
plenty of businesses choose other cheaper alternatives including Excel
or free clone implementations of IDL8 or GNU's GDL which is similar.

https://www.harrisgeospatial.com/Software-Technology/IDL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDL_(programming_language)

It started out from a VAX/VMS Fortran heritage a long time ago.

There are other options like MATLAB that sit in between too. It really
depends on what sort of problem you are trying to solve which tool is
the most appropriate for a quick look see at an idea or new algorithm.

Some of them have much steeper learning curves than Excel.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Martin Brown]

My first exposure to spreadsheets was in the early 80's as SuperCalc on
a Z80 CP/M with a whopping 64k of ram. It was better than VisiCalc.

It is fine as a scratchpad testbed for looking at someone else's data
with minimum effort. I also used to believe it was impossible to code
reliable applications in it until someone commissioned me to do one.

It is possible and the same code with minor modifications had been
running since Excel97 - MS broke it horribly with XL2007 when various
serious bugs were introduced in their premature out of the box version.
The one that caused me the most grief was the race condition inside
their new implementation of drawing graphs.

They also broke the previously correct polynomial fit routine in the
charts to make it agree with the faulty implementation in MATLAB :(

These things were eventually fixed but for a while the solution was to
add delays inside the charting routines so that the axes scales were
defined before it tried to plot the first points on the graph. It was a
particular problem for X-Y charts of the sort scientists tend to use.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[whit3rd]

On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 8:23:06 AM UTC-8, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

> It depends on what you are trying to use the workbook to do.
> Spreadsheet programs are good at storing and post processing
> collected data.

Yeah, but... if there's no extraordinary attempt to document the process,
there's scope for surprises. My pencil notes have numbers, AND units,
and some ancillary notes on equipment, conditions, etc.
A list of numbers is NOT enough, I want ALL that info together in one
place. I mix metric and imperial measurements, and a spreadsheet
from a few years ago might, too. Proofreading spreadsheets is
necessarily more of an annoyance than any alternate data-record scheme.

Yes, I'm old-fashioned. I've learned to keep a hardcopy of everything
important, and if someone else wants 'the data' they can have a copy.
The original stays in a bound book, or a very rigid format (with
embedded labels and version info) file.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:59d054fb-ad0e-43a6...@googlegroups.com:

> On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 8:23:06 AM UTC-8,
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>
>> It depends on what you are trying to use the workbook to do.
>> Spreadsheet programs are good at storing and post processing
>> collected data.
>
> Yeah, but... if there's no extraordinary attempt to document the
> process,

Huh? I am approaching a lab bench with a SMPS to test. I already
know what we specd it at in design. My goal is to gather data from
an energized unit in loaded and idle modes. So I already know what
'scales' or 'ranges' need to be covered by the chart I wish to plot
by hand during the testing. With those numbers in mind I can
construct a spreadsheet with no data and a chart printout that has
the scales and axis names on it, just like I would if I were laying
it out onto a piece of... wait for it... graph paper!

That printed, BLANK (data point wise) paper is where I plot my
test data points AND write my notes, etc.... all in one place!
Imagine that. I have yet to enter a single bit of collected data
into it and it is already proving to be useful.

> there's scope for surprises.

That would depend on just how good your spreadsheet guy is, and
just like a programmer, he needs to be able to comment the whole
process to you, either in the sheet code itself or in the meeting
you have where he explains its operation to you. At some point you
become better at using the tools as well.

I can use a spreadsheet to create a printed form. Let's use a
product traveller as an example. The spreadsheet is far better than
Word for this as I can make pixel by pixel adjustments to the
printed product from a spreadsheet layout, and those spaces I place
for the addition of collected data can actually be used for that
data.

I have spreadsheets that are meant to be printed out and hung on
the wall for each week's ESD equipment testing. Every technician
has to test their gear every day and it also allows one to track and
monitor lab humidity levels, an important ESD abatement
consideration.

This spreadsheet has worksheets that are for print only where all
of the data, such as the employee listing and date and lab
information which are mutable from lab to lab, are gathered from and
pasted into the print job sheet from another sheet. The user fills
out the employee data and insures that the date is right, and prints
out the ESD test sheet for that week. It has an add 7 function that
allows the supervisor to print out future documents for subsequent
weeks as the date field is not tied to the actual date.

There is a smal lab, letter sized landscape printed sheet, and a
large lab, full sized tabloid print out for up to 63 employees.

Lab names and dates and employee lists are what are mutable.

It really is a good piece of work. I feel like giving it to the
group to show you an example of what I can do at the simple, zero
process level, with a spreadsheet.

I also use them to make banners and labels, etc. The per pixel
adjustment capability allows me to lay out print jobs that cover
entire label sets even better than the label makers' overpriced user
softwares.

> My pencil notes have
> numbers, AND units, and some ancillary notes on equipment,
> conditions, etc. A list of numbers is NOT enough, I want ALL that
> info together in one place.

My test data sheets get developed as I develop the power supply
design (in that example). Since I know all the parameters we need
to test on it, I can make a printed test sheet with zero data on it,
but places to put collected data, by hand, it becomes the hard copy
of the test event. Folks still want hard copy test data filings,
even in our supposed jump to paperless.

> I mix metric and imperial
> measurements,

An excel chart would graph your date regardless of what you choose
to call the numbers plotted. It merely sets up the proper scaling
and placement of those number arrays, just as you would in making it
by hand. It plots the numbers. It processes NOTHING.

> and a spreadsheet from a few years ago might, too.

You can perform internal processing on your numbers to convert
them to some other unit yourself in the spreadsheet if you wish to
present them differently. I think you are complicating this way too
much.

> Proofreading spreadsheets is necessarily more of an annoyance than
> any alternate data-record scheme.

Nope. You create the spreadsheet fully proofed. You only use it
for real, gathered data if it actually works.

One does not take a pile of data and 'slap together' a 'quick
spreadsheet' and get desirable results. The creation of a tool with
which to examine one's data is something that demands at the very
least a rudimentary requirements analysis, just like a good database
admin would do before implementing a database into a system.

> Yes, I'm old-fashioned.

No. You are a person that dismissed a certain method long ago,
even though it soent decades evolving, you failed to 'add' even the
most rudimentary upgrade to your knowledge of it. You must see and
know that so many use them for so much that there has to be a robust
engine there. What we real men would call... "A tool".

I know that I make use of the TOOLS at my disposal. I think John
and other simply cry because Billy succeeded in sucking out more
cash than just that for the OS.

> I've learned to keep a hardcopy of
> everything important,

Your hand written data sheet is the hard copy of the event. That
data can be pumped into a computer and stored in more than a few
different ways, and even 'archived' in a specific process your firm
can put into its ISO methodology. Computers are useful for storing
data, and processing data. We can do one or both with those stored
data sets. Only the operator can be held responsible for the
information (processed data) he presents to his supervisors and
peers. He must bypass any and all known bugs and stay on top of any
that get discovered. Seems no different than any other aspect of
using a computer to perform certain tasks.

> and if someone else wants 'the data' they
> can have a copy.

Yes, from the READ ONLY archive.

> The original stays in a bound book, or a very
> rigid format (with embedded labels and version info) file.

We call them product travellers, and they get filed. A file for
each product, not a binder full of a bunch. A file cabinet fule of
individual files (jackets). Each product's history from inital
assembly through test gets tracked.

[John Larkin]

VHDL is code and it's not procedural. Maybe that's why FPFAs tend to
have so few bugs compared to uPs running c. I have people advocating
adding soft cores programmed in c, so we can get our bug level up to
industry standards.

As one zooms into the Mandelbrot Set, where the interesting stuff
lurks, doesn't the math precision have to keep going up? Seems like
that should get clumsy fast.

>
>The point about Excel and SQL is that they are pure functional
>languages; they describe the result to be computed and let the machine
>figure out how.

Neither is a computer language. Well, SQL a tiny bit.

I rarely see a spreadsheet that includes even a functional title, much
less author/date/revision control. I never see comments or operating
instructions. Someone who happens across it a few years later will
have no idea what it is... probably not even the author.

Our customers send us "forms" to fill out that are horrors. We mostly
refuse to do it.

Don't get me started on Word macros, maybe another "computer
language."

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:m0sq6et1e5q96gvsi...@4ax.com:

> As one zooms into the Mandelbrot Set, where the interesting stuff
> lurks, doesn't the math precision have to keep going up? Seems like
> that should get clumsy fast.
>

You simply have no grasp as to what an imaginary number is, eh?

The simplicity of the math is the key... to the entire universe.

Or... is it simply... 42

Really, John. You claim to be so math centric and have spent time in
your posts declaring how little math I know (something you could not
possibly know anything about), yet you spout things like this, which
are obvious indicators that you seriously lack in the realm.

[John Larkin]

I only use hand plots for personal experiments, like characterizing a
part. I take scope and setup photos, too, and we have a system for
archiving things like that unofficially. We take no data manually for
production testing; that's all automated and formally archived.

>
> I plot actual metrology data.

What do you do with the paper plot that the tech does by hand? Does
she, or some software, also log numerical data from the instruments?

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:m0sq6et1e5q96gvsi...@4ax.com:

Do you use ESD abatement control equipment in your labs, John?

I really shouldn't *give* you this... I meant it as a response to
another post by an intelligent poster.

Hell, go find it in my response to him. It has all the elements
you describe, and requires no version control as it contains no
formulas that would evolve over time.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote in news:q4jlmi$1pk3$1
@gioia.aioe.org:

Remember, the only thing on it which is editable is the employee
name lists, and the date, and the lab name, and the logo, if
desired.

Yes, it has small macro codes for the date advance/retard and the
print job buttons. No external calls or data manipulations.

This is one of my best, non data process related workbooks. I
suppose I could save it in a prior level Office version so most
folks can use it. I do not think that an Office 2003 version would
act any differently. Anyway, it is so your lab personnel
supervisors can insure to customers that your lab does all it can to
abate ESD events/propagation.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/m3cfzvzrotqr1te/ESD+Log+Auto.xlsm

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:fatq6e52hem9p486r...@4ax.com:

> What do you do with the paper plot that the tech does by hand? Does
> she, or some software, also log numerical data from the instruments?
>

Do yours?

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 08:07:49 +0000 (UTC),

That's good. I don't do those bad things either.

>
> Dopes like you bring out the worst in me.

Maybe exercize some self-control. You swear and rant at a lot of
people. All that anger isn't healthy.

Because you stopped
>learning decades ago when you thought at some point that you knew it
>all.

No, I keep learning, because it's fun. I just designed (and did the
PCB layout for) a GaN based pulse generator, using phemts as logic
gates just for fun. Gotta build some and see if they will work.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h1mhx4bbb4jqkid/Gan_e.jpg?dl=0

Spice makes beautiful waveforms. I can only hope the real thing is
similar.

The board layout is up to about 20 hours per square inch. It's almost
done.

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 01:55:30 -0800 (PST), whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com>
wrote:

We have a folder called PROTOS on a network drive. Every experiment
gets assigned a controlled sub-folder, named something like
J:\Protos\Z420_Joule_Tester, and there is a log file for them. We dump
everything there: a readme file, whiteboard sketches, photos of
everything, links, data sheets, test results, anything useful. The
PROTOS folder of course gets backed up.

I take and graph a lot of data by hand, so I photograph that for the
archive.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:770r6e17qrelll8r6...@4ax.com:

> That's good. I don't do those bad things either.
>

Bullshit.

You dissing the space program is 100% undeniable proof that you
stopped learning decades ago.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:770r6e17qrelll8r6...@4ax.com:

> Maybe exercize some self-control. You swear and rant at a lot of
> people. All that anger isn't healthy.
>

I will likely outlive you by double. I am going to make at least
130. I know the secrets.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:770r6e17qrelll8r6...@4ax.com:

> No, I keep learning, because it's fun.

No, you lie. Because you piss and moan about things you are too
goddamned lazy to understand or make use of and you even diss those
whom do make use of them.

You have deliberately put on a pair of horse blinders to augment your
tunnel vision.

And it is obvious, yet just like Trump, you do not even see it.

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in

news:pg1r6elsvvruifc63...@4ax.com:

> We have a folder called PROTOS on a network drive. Every
> experiment gets assigned a controlled sub-folder, named something
> like J:\Protos\Z420_Joule_Tester, and there is a log file for
> them. We dump everything there: a readme file, whiteboard
> sketches, photos of everything, links, data sheets, test results,
> anything useful. The PROTOS folder of course gets backed up.
>
> I take and graph a lot of data by hand, so I photograph that for
> the archive.
>

I refer to mine as "NPI" for New Product Introduction.

I prefer the formal aspects of my work to actually be formal.

"PROTOS" isn't even a word or an acronym.

[John Larkin]

We automate production testing, to minimize tech time. Some things
take two hours to test and cal, but 5 minutes of that is tech time.

We take no production test data by hand (or by spreadsheet!) I do plot
stuff myself, by hand, but that's engineering. Sometimes I plot it on
my whiteboard and photograph that. I have a nice faint-grid whiteboard
just to the right of my bench, so I can scribble easily while I'm
testing.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 17:23:23 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

>John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
>news:pg1r6elsvvruifc63...@4ax.com:
>
>> We have a folder called PROTOS on a network drive. Every
>> experiment gets assigned a controlled sub-folder, named something
>> like J:\Protos\Z420_Joule_Tester, and there is a log file for
>> them. We dump everything there: a readme file, whiteboard
>> sketches, photos of everything, links, data sheets, test results,
>> anything useful. The PROTOS folder of course gets backed up.
>>
>> I take and graph a lot of data by hand, so I photograph that for
>> the archive.
>>
>
> I refer to mine as "NPI" for New Product Introduction.

The PROTOS archive is not for new product development. Once a product
is defined, it gets its own working folder somewhere else.

J:\PROTOS is for experiments, good and failed.

>
> I prefer the formal aspects of my work to actually be formal.
>
>"PROTOS" isn't even a word or an acronym.

It's a secret code word.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 15:45:04 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

>John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
>news:m0sq6et1e5q96gvsi...@4ax.com:
>
>> As one zooms into the Mandelbrot Set, where the interesting stuff
>> lurks, doesn't the math precision have to keep going up? Seems like
>> that should get clumsy fast.
>>
>
>You simply have no grasp as to what an imaginary number is, eh?

The issue that I raised is math precision. Once you zoom a bunch of
times, single floats can't work. A few more, and doubles won't work.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

[DecadentLinux...@decadence.org]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highland_snip_technology.com> wrote in

news:t88r6e9hbvj90v612...@4ax.com:

> The issue that I raised is math precision. Once you zoom a bunch of
> times, single floats can't work. A few more, and doubles won't work.
>

So... no grasp of what an iterative process is then.

[John Larkin]

Here's some detail about the math precision problem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set#Perturbation_theory_and_series_approximation

[Martin Brown]

On 20/02/2019 18:51, John Larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 15:45:04 +0000 (UTC),
> DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
>
>> John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
>> news:m0sq6et1e5q96gvsi...@4ax.com:
>>
>>> As one zooms into the Mandelbrot Set, where the interesting stuff
>>> lurks, doesn't the math precision have to keep going up? Seems like
>>> that should get clumsy fast.
>>
>> You simply have no grasp as to what an imaginary number is, eh?
>
> The issue that I raised is math precision. Once you zoom a bunch of
> times, single floats can't work. A few more, and doubles won't work.

Intel CPUs can do 10 byte reals although few compilers today support
them in high level languages. Withdrawn after MSC v6.0 if memory serves
for "compatibility" reasons. It was useful to have them available.

Once you go beyond a 64bit mantissa you have to roll your own.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown