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by bayindirh 819 days ago
Yes, but you can create a small macro to the change the formatting and assign that to your table. Your CSV should import deterministically. That's not impossible to do.

I saw a complete analysis engine written as an Excel file, which accepts and exports CSVs cleanly. It can be done.
2 comments
tssva 818 days ago
You don’t even need to write a macro. Excel’s Import Text Wizard will allow you to assign data type to each column at the time of import.
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LikesPwsh 818 days ago
Same for Power Query and Text to Columns.
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n4r9 819 days ago
"It can be done" is a far cry from "it's reasonable to expect scientists to do this".
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bayindirh 819 days ago
As a person who does research and support researchers, I can't see the gap, sorry.

I understand some people don't know it's possible, and some don't care, but for any competent researcher, it's expected them to master the tools they use. This is esp. true for career researchers.

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n4r9 818 days ago
I'm not disputing that a competent computer user can do it. From the perspective of "this is what I would do if I was a scientist", you're totally correct.

But when you're writing guidelines for an entire field - as the article describes HGNC doing - you're catering to all researchers in that field: good, bad, and ugly. Plus technicians, editors, admins and anyone else that might handle the files. Given how hidden and unintuitive Excel's behaviour is here, I think what they're doing makes sense.

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djtango 818 days ago
I agree.

As a researcher you may have to learn how to carefully dig up skulls, raise rats, handle lasers, remember not to accidentally syringe yourself with viruses etc.

Getting cut by Excel seems like part of the job and at least is hopefully less life threatening than possibly blowing yourself up or giving yourself silicosis.

That said the problem with computers is that they're pervasive, they're a moving target and often it's a case of the blind leading the blind when it comes to research. And probably more and more research groups need dedicated computer technician resources who can centralize the required computer knowledge of keeping a research group running.

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