RIght on, Dennis!
On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, dennis roberts wrote in part:
> ... it [Graham Smith's comment (see below)] is comparable to saying
> that since everyone might have notepad on their machine, that is the
> way they should do word processing. we need to alert students to
> general tools that are DESIGNED to do certain things ... and, if they
> become professionals in the field .. then they should know that
> sometimes you need to purchase "tools" for your work.
Proper tools, I would have said.
> sure, excel can do (with its plugin modules) much of this stuff but,
> A) the algorithms for doing much of this are not very efficient nor, is
> their accuracy without concern, and B) excel is limited in many ways so,
> for many [purposes] one has to go to the REAL things anyway ... why
> [not] start them on that path in the first place?
> software is cheap nowadays ...
< snip, examples >
> ... in this climate ... it seems even LESS of an argument that
> students might not have access to real packages .. they are all over the
> place and cheap.
This was in response to Graham D Smith, who wrote:
> >Sometimes the right tool for the job is Excel.
While "right" is one of those words with many meanings, in the context
of tools for the job none of those meanings is a synonym for "only
available". [I have sometimes been in circumstances where I needed a
screw-driver but didn't have one, and was able to use a dime (a U.S.
ten-cent piece) for the purpose, the screws in question being fairly
large slotted screws and a dime being a fairly thin coin (nothing at all
like your British one-pound coin!). Wouldn't have worked at all with
Phillips-head screws, Allen-head screws, or Robertson screws. Can your
students tell when they're facing a statistical problem that Excel
cannot be trusted to be "right" for?]
> >Most of my students will not have access to specialist statistical
> >software after they graduate. Although Excel has many shortcomings,
> >it is widely-available.
Hmph. Most of _my_ students are unlikely to have their own personal
copies of statistical packages (which, as Dennis pointed out, are not
really _specialist_ statistical software) after they graduate. But while
they are in college they DO have access to Minitab, or SPSS, or some
other package(s); and what's college (or university) about if not to
introduce the unlearned to ideas AND TOOLS (!!!) they'd not otherwise
encounter?
Part of the problem, as Bob Hayden has pointed out, is worrying about
what shortcoming not previously noticed is going to bollix up the
analysis one is about to do next. Or, for that matter, a shortcoming
that has already been identified, but I don't happen to know of it (or,
maybe, remember it from when I _did_ know of it).
Pencils (inter alia) are widely available. One does not, on that account
alone, recommend their use as one's principal device for carrying out
statistical analyses.
-- DFB.
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Donald F. Burrill [EMAIL PROTECTED]
348 Hyde Hall, Plymouth State College, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MSC #29, Plymouth, NH 03264 603-535-2597
184 Nashua Road, Bedford, NH 03110 603-471-7128
