----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 2:11 AM
Subject: Re: cities, databases parallel thread
> Emlyn O'Regan wrote:
> >
> > Geez Spike, what is it with excel & engineers? Some years back I used to
> > work in a company with lots of engineers, supporting small systems.
> > Engineers, I discovered, love excel. At some point, the really keen ones
> > discover Excel macros, and build systems, which grow until they become
both
> > mission critical and entirely broken. That was a, ah, challenging job.
> snip
> >
> > Truly Spike, I say unto ye, venture into the world of MSAccess. You'll
be
> > surprised; contrary to the hype, it's actually a really useful tool for
> > storing/manipulating large amounts of data. Just don't try to build
> > multiuser systems out of it.
>
> Access is great for manipulating lots of static data. Excel is for an
entirely
> different purpose. The worksheet is a matrix to build up highly complex
> calculations step by step to generate NEW data. Based on a few variables,
one
> can run simulations of very complex systems. You can create a 'control
panel'
> that displays real time graphs and readouts and controls that allow you to
> virtually 'run' a machine in simulation, based entirely on the
calculations in
> the worksheet that calculate all the forces and inputs that come into
play. This
> is something that Access cannot do, unless it is being used to run an
Excel
> worksheet.
>
Yep, I agree. So what Spike would do, is his large, well structured data
into Excel, then point Excel at it (it can do that I think) and go from
there.
Emlyn
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