this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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Microsoft Fixes Excel Feature That Forced Scientists to Rename Human Genes::Microsoft now allows users to disable automatic date conversion, which means scientists no longer have to worry about using alternative names for genes.

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[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 65 points 1 year ago (7 children)
[–] SatyrSack@lemmy.one 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nowhere here is it implied that they were using it instead of a database. They could run into this issue whether or not they were properly using Excel for what it is for.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's a well known phenomenon. The title of the article even alludes to it.

[–] SatyrSack@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago

Read the article. IMHO scientists were having problems because they were using it for a task it is ill suited for. The kind of program that is designed for storing large amounts of data and preventing accidental corruption of it is a database.

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