[rustybelt]

You can format the column as text before you paste or you can load data from text and set the types for every column. Excel has features to handle all of these issues. I think it's biggest problem is that it's just too easy to use. It will allow novices to do all sorts of things with their data without providing guardrails for common mistakes.

[Isthatablackgsd]

Agreed with this. Excel does have data import feature that will allows us to fine-tune the import process to prevent this kind of mistake.

People just double click the CSV and complained that it didn't do it correctly. It is the same situation with scientific research data that researchers don't bother to use escape marker or blindly open the file without going through the proper import process. Then they blamed Excel for the that without understanding how Excel works.

Yes, Excel does have their quirks. But there are ways around those quirks, they have thousands of thousands guides out there about Excel. There is no excuses for people to complain about Excel didn't do the way that users want it to do without looking up for information.

[oauea]

Except that literally every end-user I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with did not know how to properly import data into excel.

Double clicking the CSV should open the data import dialog.

[stjohnswarts]

Yeah it does, libreoffice has methods of recognizing numbers that are to be interpreted as strings as well. This is user error and the programmer trying to blame that on the program rather than it being a process issue. The spreadsheet can't read your mind