[R] the joy of spreadsheets (off-topic)

[John Kane]

When in doubt, assume the spreadsheet is wrong.  I suggested this to someone have a problem with R vs Excel results  a while ago.  When I checked back with him -- there was a spreadsheet error.  

I think a t-shirt with the motto "Friends don't let friends use spreadsheets"[1] sounds like a good idea.  Unfortunately I am not artistic enough to do a design.

1. Slight paraphrase of J. D Cryer's statement http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jcryer/JSMTalk2001.pdf

John Kane
Kingston ON Canada


> -----Original Message-----
> From: sarah.goslee at gmail.com
> Sent: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:25:57 -0400
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] the joy of spreadsheets (off-topic)
> 
> Given that we occasionally run into problems with comparing Excel
> results to R results, and other spreadsheet-induced errors, I thought
> this might be of interest.
> 
> http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems
> 
> The punchline:
> 
> "If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made,
> well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the
> core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the
> global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone
> accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel."
> 
> Ouch.
> 
> (Note: I know nothing about the site, the author of the article, or
> the study in question. I was pointed to it by someone else. But if
> true: highly problematic.)
> 
> Sarah
> 
> --
> Sarah Goslee
> http://www.functionaldiversity.org
> 
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