Editing Talk:1667: Algorithms

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How can an excel spreadsheet be complicated? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.244.85|108.162.244.85]] 04:52, 13 April 2016 (UTC
:See this example http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/04/how-an-accountant-created-an-entire-rpg-inside-an-excel-spreadsheet/ {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.82}}
:: Oh my [[User:Nk22|The Twenty-second. The Not So Only. The Nathan/Nk22]] ([[User talk:Nk22|talk]]) 10:36, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
:::also http://www.geocities.jp/nchikada/pac/ (it's geocities!) --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.84|141.101.98.84]] 11:56, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
::::Or the thing I use at work. Work in finance - reconciling 1 code takes half a GIGABYTE of spreadsheets every 4 weeks that had been added to and tweaked so many times in the last 5 years by 6 different people, 5 of which are no longer at the company (and the last one hasn't used it in over a year) that it took me 4 months just to understand how the damned things worked and went together, and my work asks me to teach internal excel classes and run drop ins to help people out. First thing I did when I understood it was tear it down and rebuild from the ground up. Didn't cut the number of sheets (actually ended up with more), but it now takes 3 days not 15 and has dropped from half a gig to about 270MB thanks to a major cleanup in the one file I kept. {{unsigned ip|141.101.70.103}}

Leftpad is a reference to the recent incident where a developer unpublished all his libraries from the NodeJS Package Manager, causing much disruption: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/ [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.231|162.158.85.231]] 05:58, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

In the off chance that this is referencing an actual spreadsheet, and if anyone has a link, please post it in my talk page.  (And in the article of course, but talk page first) [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 06:45, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

The remark about quicksort's efficiency doesn't make sense. It's still the most common and practical general sorting algorithm. It's about as efficient you can typically get except in specialized cases or with some specific type of data. Should be removed imo. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.121|141.101.81.121]] 08:52, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
:From Wikipedia: Quicksort (sometimes called partition-exchange sort) is an efficient sorting algorithm,
:From explainxkcd: Next is '''quicksort''', a classic (if not very efficient) way to sort a list of items [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1667:_Algorithms&diff=next&oldid=117700]. 
:[[User:Demro|Demro]] ([[User talk:Demro|talk]]) 12:34, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Added a [Citation Needed] for the excel based RPG. More so I can read about it/play it than anything else.. [[User:Xseo|Xseo]] ([[User talk:Xseo|talk]]) 09:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
     Thank you whoever put that in [[User:Xseo|Xseo]] ([[User talk:Xseo|talk]]) 11:54, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Added a bit to the church line. Just because you only see what happens on Sunday morning, for one hour, doesn't mean there's not more happening just beneath the surface. The classroom list at our church looks like a professional buildings office directory, and I know of members having to choose between two activities because both meet, or practice, at the same time. For instance, I know of a prospective AV team member who will never be a full time AV member, because she's a Soprano and already in Bells. (AV is setting up and debugging while the choir is practicing, and naturally it's hard to run a mixer or video switcher from the choir loft.)

Mind you, it's still hyperbole, but not to the degree previously given in the explanation. {{unsigned|Sean Roach}}

is anyone else concerned that randall doesn't label his axis? is it logarithmic? --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.84|141.101.98.84]] 11:56, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Is the Nebraskan excel sheet a loose reference to how you couldn't initially order Windows in Nebraska (from what I can gather), or am I over-analyzing this? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqKqQmSHkEg at 0:57) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.85|141.101.98.85]] 12:18, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
: Maybe it's a 'flat' joke. [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]]) 15:48, 13 April 2016 (UTC)


Interestingly enough, when I actually searched for "what the heck is a leftpad algorithm" sans quotations, google didn't pull up any results at all.[[User:Kirdneh|Kirdneh]] ([[User talk:Kirdneh|talk]]) 14:24, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
:Huh, that's strange. Someone had better find a query that actually works and edit the article accordingly.
:Also, the page told me, "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 0 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included." I clicked the link to repeat it and still, nothing showed up. Just goes to show that even Google's algorithms can have small flaws and quirks. <span style="background:#0064de;font-size:12px;padding:4px 12px;border-radius:8px;">[[User talk:AgentMuffin|<span style="color:#f0faff;">~AgentMuffin</span>]]</span>
:Weird, when I try that query I get nearly 100k results. (The first now being this site) [[User:Tahg|Tahg]] ([[User talk:Tahg|talk]]) 23:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Were .xlsx spreadsheets even around in 2007?  Wasn't that final x added to the extension with office 2010?
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.158|108.162.249.158]] 20:30, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
:xlsx was introduced with Office 2007: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel#Current_file_extensions [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:18, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Might it additionally be not just the intrinsic complexity but the perceived complexity? Bigger spreadsheets like this easily become arcane and incomprehensible, esp with a general lack of comments or explanations of what cells and formulas mean or how they were reached, especially with multiple contributors. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.137|172.68.58.137]] 23:35, 11 August 2017 (UTC)RJ K.

My organization has used Excel as a scheduling tool for at least 10 years. Management was using paper and an enterprising employee with a penchant for Excel decided to kick them into the computer age. Each hour of each day of a 24/7 operation is tracked, including which of 13 task positions is being worked by which employee. But it must contain room for other than regularly scheduled employees as well as future additions. And each Workbook covers 2 weeks at a stretch. All information must come together to generate several reports. So... 13 positions x a theoretical 100 employees = 1300 cells. Times 14 days = 18,200 cells. And each cell has a background formula to calculate from each hour of each 24 hr. day...formulas with 95 nested COUNTIFs. So there are 1,729,000 COUNTIF calculations running in the background and spitting out results on a bar chart and two totals reports. And this does not include the formulas running behind each daily sheet to provide staffing numbers for each hour around the clock. It has been an absolute beast to manage. I just recently finished overhauling the whole thing, improving appearance and organization, locking areas of each sheet to minimize formula corruption, and implementing conditional formatting to further reduce the need for the user input (half a dozen supervisory personnel, some of whom can recognize a computer when they see one) that has caused so much grief. But in the end there was no getting around the enormous formulas running in the background. Excel is NOT the right tool for this job. But we have been unable to determine a replacement. [[User:LostButMakingGoodTime|LostButMakingGoodTime]] ([[User talk:LostButMakingGoodTime|talk]]) 17:52, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Why is 'schism' probably referring to the East-West Schism? There have been dozens of schisms for all sorts of reasons, from Arianism and Miaphysitism to recent splits in the Mormon Church and various other young denominations. The comic could (theoretically) be referring to any one of these schisms, or (more likely, in my view) it could be referring to the concept of a schism in general. Personally I think it's most likely a parody of modern church splits over outwardly petty-looking, seemingly trivial, or apparently overly worldly reasons. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.228|172.70.90.228]] 03:03, 20 September 2023 (UTC)