<story><title>A Look at How Traders and Economists Are Using the Julia Programming Language</title><url>http://waterstechnology.com/waters/feature/2476518/the-infancy-of-julia-an-inside-look-at-how-traders-and-economists-are-using-the-julia-programming-language</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>s_q_b</author><text>This is digital Stockhold syndrome.&lt;p&gt;Excel is something managers and executives can understand, so it became the default language for data analysis. Now technologists trapped using it have to create ex post facto justifications for why it&amp;#x27;s really &amp;quot;just misunderstood.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Excel is massively slow, makes it easy for beginners to make massive mistakes, computes lots of types in very odd manners, performs floating point operations wrong, and leads to spaghetti code that is a rat&amp;#x27;s nest of incomprehensible cross-references.&lt;p&gt;Worst of all, the lack of code path visibility usually leads to a bus factor of 1.&lt;p&gt;Sure, one &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; learn to operate Excel for data analysis with a decent level of efficiency, in the same manner one &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; cross the Pacific in a canoe, but both are still terrible tools for the job.</text></item><item><author>valarauca1</author><text>The reason for this is simple. Excel is&lt;p&gt;1. An incredibly powerful tool.&lt;p&gt;2. No bar of entry (cost aside, true in corporate environment).&lt;p&gt;3. Very gradual learning curve.&lt;p&gt;4. The efficiency gain vs time invested is exponential.&lt;p&gt;Power Excel users, much like their VIM&amp;#x2F;Emacs counter parts don&amp;#x27;t use a mouse. It is just keyboard short cuts [1][2]. This makes them insanely productive.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;jFSf5YhYQbw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;jFSf5YhYQbw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;0nbkaYsR94c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;0nbkaYsR94c&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>s_q_b</author><text>Most financial firms need their quants to worry less about the new programming language hotness, and more about moving entire systems off unbelievably complicated Excel spreadsheets.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jerf</author><text>Everybody&amp;#x27;s right. Excel is a powerful, flexible tool that also has almost no guard rails and all but begs people to make profound mistakes and huge messes. There&amp;#x27;s too many people who sneer at spreadsheets when they should be using them, and there&amp;#x27;s too many people who use them when they shouldn&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;No contradictions.&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting to see if anyone could get some power Excel users together and construct a next-generation spreadsheet that encouraged better practices and worked to prevent huge messes. Spreadsheets are like SQL, where the initial release was so far ahead of its time that it managed to entrench itself into the very fabric of computing, even though it&amp;#x27;s long overdue for a reimagining.</text></comment>
<story><title>A Look at How Traders and Economists Are Using the Julia Programming Language</title><url>http://waterstechnology.com/waters/feature/2476518/the-infancy-of-julia-an-inside-look-at-how-traders-and-economists-are-using-the-julia-programming-language</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>s_q_b</author><text>This is digital Stockhold syndrome.&lt;p&gt;Excel is something managers and executives can understand, so it became the default language for data analysis. Now technologists trapped using it have to create ex post facto justifications for why it&amp;#x27;s really &amp;quot;just misunderstood.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Excel is massively slow, makes it easy for beginners to make massive mistakes, computes lots of types in very odd manners, performs floating point operations wrong, and leads to spaghetti code that is a rat&amp;#x27;s nest of incomprehensible cross-references.&lt;p&gt;Worst of all, the lack of code path visibility usually leads to a bus factor of 1.&lt;p&gt;Sure, one &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; learn to operate Excel for data analysis with a decent level of efficiency, in the same manner one &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; cross the Pacific in a canoe, but both are still terrible tools for the job.</text></item><item><author>valarauca1</author><text>The reason for this is simple. Excel is&lt;p&gt;1. An incredibly powerful tool.&lt;p&gt;2. No bar of entry (cost aside, true in corporate environment).&lt;p&gt;3. Very gradual learning curve.&lt;p&gt;4. The efficiency gain vs time invested is exponential.&lt;p&gt;Power Excel users, much like their VIM&amp;#x2F;Emacs counter parts don&amp;#x27;t use a mouse. It is just keyboard short cuts [1][2]. This makes them insanely productive.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;jFSf5YhYQbw&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;jFSf5YhYQbw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;0nbkaYsR94c&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;0nbkaYsR94c&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>s_q_b</author><text>Most financial firms need their quants to worry less about the new programming language hotness, and more about moving entire systems off unbelievably complicated Excel spreadsheets.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>valarauca1</author><text>You are projecting so hard I could show PwerPoints off your forehead. I take it you are rather unhappy in your line of work?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m just a lowly DBA re-posting and summarizing comments [1] for karma.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12448545&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12448545&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>