←back to thread

Ireland’s Diarmuid Early wins world Microsoft Excel title

(www.bbc.com)
280 points 1659447091 | 1 comments | 20 Dec 25 19:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
jasonthorsness ◴[20 Dec 25 20:28 UTC] No.46339351[source]▶
The descriptions of the problems make it sound a little like algorithmic puzzles but your only tool is Excel instead of some programming language… Excel is pretty amazing in what you can do; I’ve regretted having to use Google Sheets for the last few years.
replies(2): >>46339417 #>>46339574 #
shagie ◴[20 Dec 25 20:56 UTC] No.46339574[source]▶
> but your only tool is Excel instead of some programming language

There is little difference between (if (> a b) c d) and =IF((A1 > B1), C1, D1)

Excel is the most widely installed functional programming language IDE.

replies(2): >>46339688 #>>46341440 #
OoooooooO ◴[20 Dec 25 21:13 UTC] No.46339688[source]▶
Change the language of your Windows system to anything but English and then open your Excel file with formulas again.
replies(4): >>46339854 #>>46339904 #>>46343696 #>>46346481 #
1. hidd ◴[21 Dec 25 10:07 UTC] No.46343696[source]▶
When I worked at a university's tech support, this was a recurring problem. People made grade lists in Excel, then imported them into the digital learning environment, which occasionally was set to a different language. This meant that the decimal point would be disregarded, and e.g. an 8.5/10 would be imported as an 85 (which got clamped to 10). Maximum grades for everyone, confused students and teachers :')