Thanks for that interview. Good job. I would add one distinction: Excel is fine if you're playing with datasets as they are. In my opinion, the problem arises when you wish to filter, reorder, and/or perform one of dozens of modifications that are available in the software. The functions are extremely powerful if you know them, but it is VERY easy to introduce human error in an analysis through copypasting, wrong selection of values or column or row. Or even without any mistake, coming back to an analysis 6 months later, and not remembering which steps you took to get at your final results. Or to share to a collaborator how you performed that analysis. One could argue that this can be alleviated by writing down the steps or using VBA, but if you're ready to learn VBA or document enough of your process to do it this way, you may as well use R or Python and perform your data wrangling using simple functions, and have a script to serve as your documentation. Plus, your script is there if you ever need to change your analysis or do it on another dataset!
Really practical and very useful information. I have run into the issue with EXCEL several times where it converts certain entries as dates. It's annoying. Normally I add a parenthesis to each cell, as stated in the video. Glad to hear of the second option using Wizard import. Thanks.
Hi, nice video. Just starting to get into bioinformatics and your videos are great to get an overview. General advice: Please add all the links you mention in a video to the video description, this helps a lot ;)
I am a MSc student, in Molecular Biology and Genetics. I am doing my MSc Thesis in Bioinformatics, using Excel a lot, Plink a lot, and not so much R. I was finding myself using R only with very big data and for basic function for which excel is capable of bugging itself every 5 minutes =) Very interesting talking. I am looking for whether a PhD in Bioinformatics or working directly in bioinformatics, for this reason I am learning by myself python.
Thanks for that interview. Good job.
I would add one distinction: Excel is fine if you're playing with datasets as they are. In my opinion, the problem arises when you wish to filter, reorder, and/or perform one of dozens of modifications that are available in the software. The functions are extremely powerful if you know them, but it is VERY easy to introduce human error in an analysis through copypasting, wrong selection of values or column or row.
Or even without any mistake, coming back to an analysis 6 months later, and not remembering which steps you took to get at your final results. Or to share to a collaborator how you performed that analysis.
One could argue that this can be alleviated by writing down the steps or using VBA, but if you're ready to learn VBA or document enough of your process to do it this way, you may as well use R or Python and perform your data wrangling using simple functions, and have a script to serve as your documentation. Plus, your script is there if you ever need to change your analysis or do it on another dataset!
Really practical and very useful information. I have run into the issue with EXCEL several times where it converts certain entries as dates. It's annoying. Normally I add a parenthesis to each cell, as stated in the video. Glad to hear of the second option using Wizard import. Thanks.
Hi, nice video. Just starting to get into bioinformatics and your videos are great to get an overview.
General advice: Please add all the links you mention in a video to the video description, this helps a lot ;)
Thanks, I added a link to the companion blog post that has the links inside.
Thank you very much for the tip on how to not transform gene names into dates!
Thank you so much for this content. I am pursuing a Bioinformatics degree, and this helps me understand what makes a good bioinformaticist. Thank you.
I am a MSc student, in Molecular Biology and Genetics. I am doing my MSc Thesis in Bioinformatics, using Excel a lot, Plink a lot, and not so much R. I was finding myself using R only with very big data and for basic function for which excel is capable of bugging itself every 5 minutes =) Very interesting talking.
I am looking for whether a PhD in Bioinformatics or working directly in bioinformatics, for this reason I am learning by myself python.
you are amazing! Congratulations on this great initiative.
An amazing interview, really helped me alot to decide something.
Nice job, interesting and not too technical.
Thanks...I have started learning bioinfo Ur videos are like light house
excel is stupid. period. Excel is useful sometimes, has some powerful functions, BUT so does R and python
All your clips has very weak sound . Not possible to hear please buy good microphone