Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Need Calc help

Hi Onyeibo;

On Tue, 2011-08-09 at 15:49 +0100, Onyeibo Oku wrote: 

> On 09/08/2011 10:17, Andreas Säger wrote:
> > Am 09.08.2011 00:57, Betti Ann and Preston Smith wrote:
> > > I have uploaded the information to the Calc Section of the OpenOffice
> > > Forum - it is titled 'Compare Two Files'
> > >
> > > Thanks again for your assistance,
> > > Preston
>
> There is a Calc Section of the forum? Where?

    There is no LO official forum but there are several OpenOffice and
LO forums you can use. OpenOffice being the older project has more
extensive documentation and I believe some forums. 

> > Thank you for posting the example data. My rough estimate was not that
> > far away from your actual requirement (in fact everybody tries the same
> > trivial thing, assuming that a spreadsheet must be the right tool which
> > it isn't).
>
> I'm still looking forward to a good example of a scenario best suited
> for Calc (Spreadsheets).  Since a spreadsheet is about calculative
> tables and database programs can achieve most things spreadsheets are
> used for (these days) ... shouldn't we be pushing for deprecating the
> likes of Calc so the vast majority can face the real tools?

Calc or any spreadsheet are best used when you are primarily concerned
with using data for calculations beyond very basic arithmetic and
statistical summaries. They are very good for generating "what if"
scenarios and similar analyses as well as producing graphs. I have
extensively used spreadsheets for many calculations. If you do not need
relational analysis of the data they can be used as a poor man's
database. The most basic database just stores data in some logical
manner and a spreadsheet can do this.

Databases are best suited to collecting, storing, and organizing data in
logical groups as the users need. The allow users to explore possible
relationships within the data that are always obvious. The data
searching tools are much more powerful in a database than in a
spreadsheet, particularly if you know SQL or similar tools. However a
database can not be used as a poor man's spreadsheet. Strictly speaking
most modern databases are relational databases meaning they are designed
to sift through datasets that are somehow related. 

An example of the use of both, I would use a spreadsheet to calculate my
project estimates for a proposal and would track the vendor bids for
each proposal and each proposal in a database. If I set the relationship
between correctly I could be entering the data once.

-- 
Jay Lozier
jslozier@gmail.com

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