Move from Excel to Python with Pandas Transcripts
Chapter: Welcome to the course
Lecture: Where do Excel errors come from?
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Excel is widely used for many tasks. Why does it lead to big and small errors and complaints from users?
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I think part of the reason is that Excel is the only tool. Many analysts know. And they tried to use it for all their tasks.
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The quote, If your only tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail is very appropriate in this context. If you are an Excel user,
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you probably used it for many things. A simple database, a task tracker,
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Project planner, Quick calculations complex modeling data cleaning you name it. Some of these tasks are great for Excel,
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others not so much because Excel can only do so much. People try to use it for everything data related. Instead of alternative options like Python,
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that might be more appropriate for the task. The next problem with excel is that all the flexibility makes it difficult to trace the flow
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of a spreadsheet Excel. You can have formulas that reference other spreadsheets or have complex nested functions and visual basic behind the scenes.
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The simple representation of a spreadsheet hides a lot of complexity that goes on behind the
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scenes. Another related problem is that Excel formulas make it very easy to make subtle mistakes. They're difficult to detect.
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We already mentioned data formatting is one example. I can almost guarantee you have had issues where you forgot to include the correct range,
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no formula, Or maybe your data included zeros or blank values that gave you erroneous results. Buying these types of errors can be very challenging.
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The final issue with excels performance, especially on large data sets. In addition to managing Data,
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Excel stores information about formatting formulas and logic to analyze the data. This overhead makes opening a large spreadsheet,
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a slow process with modern computers. We have gigabytes of memory available, so this shouldn't be a limitation.