Introduction
Spreadsheets are synonymous with data analysis. After all, they were made to store data, so analyzing the data in the spreadsheet just made sense. Well, that was decades ago. Now we have much more advanced tools such as R and Python to make our data analysis easier, faster, and more rewritable. The use of spreadsheets for data analysis should be a thing of the past. This is what the article “Death to Spreadsheets” by Keith McNulty talks about(the article can be found here).
Summary of Article
The article first starts by depicting a story of Keith and how – 7 years ago – he could only analyze data in spreadsheets. Then the craze of R started to go around and he decided to learn it. He compared using R to the “most powerful vacuum you have ever seen” and using spreadsheets is “a small litter picker which is picking up the pieces one by one”. So, it’s safe to say that He is not a fan of spreadsheets. The rest of the article details why he believes this and helps businesses to migrate to the use of R for their data analysis as opposed to spreadsheets. One of the main reasons why Keith believes that R is so much better is because the analysis done in R can be easily reproduced and Keith believes that we are going through a reproducibility crisis. Another reason is that spreadsheets make commentary difficult whereas in R commentary is easy, especially if you use the right software(like Jupyter notebooks). Finally, the structure of spreadsheets is chaotic and non-linear, making it so that non-spreadsheet users have a tough time understanding what has already been done. The article ends off by giving businesses tips to migrate from spreadsheets to R in data analysis.
My Take
Overall, I liked this article. Its informative nature coupled with its ability to deliver information in a fun way made it a very enjoyable read. The use of the story at the beginning hooked the reader and also gave credibility to the author, especially about this topic because you know that he has been in this same situation before. Also, it was written in a very easy-to-understand way making it an ideal read for someone who is just getting started in this field. Its actionable insights for businesses make it easy for them to take this idealistic world that Keith presents and make it a reality. Another aspect of this article that I enjoyed was its use of bullet points. This helped the article not only be more organized but also made it easier to pull information from the article later. In conclusion, this article was informative, organized, and easy to understand.
Conclusion
All in all, this was a good article. It was fun to read and presented actionable insights for the reader which is useful. Also, the article’s story was delightful and established credibility. I highly recommend you read this article when you get the chance(the article can be found here).