data analysis with excel?, Full story at http://www.physorg.com/news110200561.html

http://www.physorg.com/news110200561.html

Anyone here actually dumb enough to use excel for data analysis?

There have been other E*cel bugs over the years.
I have spent hours trying to figure out an E*cel mis-calculation only to find it is E*cel failing to calculate correctly due to a bug.
Since that first bug I came across I have not trusted E*cel or other Microslop products.
I compare it to buying a car only to find out that the engine stops if you open a window and indicate at the same time.
Microslop is a marketing company that happens to make software as a 2ndary product. They could not engineer their way out of a paper bag.
If you were going to fly to the moon would run Unix or Microslop?

I just put all of the equations listed in the post into Excel 2003 SP2 (11.8146.8132) and it calculated and displayed the results correctly.

Oh, and @maynard:

Yes, I use Excel for personal finance and analysis purposes at home, and for various purposes at work when needed. So far, I have caught it making several mistakes, most notably the old "floating point error" that afflicted a lot of NT systems a few years back. In fact, I was the one who notified my credit union of the error, when evidence of it showed up on my bank statement. They were aghast.

As with ALL software, trust but verify. That's why I have a 1980's Radio Shack "pocket" printing calculator in my desk drawer to check anything that has to be double-checked for calculation/data entry accuracy. ID10T errors are still the most common error type.

Well, you need to realize that a LOT of students have access to MS Excel and DO use it for data analysis. Working with applications such as Excel and Origin really makes things easier for students. I use it myself for almost every assignment and it's really helping me out. I haven't stumped across any mistakes so far but I think MS ought to release fixes REALLY fast...

Imagine my shock.....