Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!feeder.news-service.com!feeder.news-service.com!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!talisker.lacave.net!lacave.net!not-for-mail From: Mike Stephens Newsgroups: comp.lang.ruby Subject: Why should I be a programmer, to program? Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 13:44:02 -0500 Organization: Service de news de lacave.net Lines: 26 Message-ID: <121ff4897c1b5f723f96d80c224270f1@ruby-forum.com> References: <3ab1912e670b08219714322dad0a1ebe@ruby-forum.com> <20110330143723.GA75718@guilt.hydra> <20110330192538.GA76517@guilt.hydra> <20110331053229.GB78145@guilt.hydra> <7631a84ea921373c09e25b83d0742e6e@ruby-forum.com> <4D986551.70802@classicnet.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: bristol.highgroove.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: talisker.lacave.net 1301856265 62565 65.111.164.187 (3 Apr 2011 18:44:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@lacave.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 18:44:25 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: X-Received-From: This message has been automatically forwarded from the ruby-talk mailing list by a gateway at comp.lang.ruby. If it is SPAM, it did not originate at comp.lang.ruby. Please report the original sender, and not us. Thanks! For more details about this gateway, please visit: http://blog.grayproductions.net/categories/the_gateway X-Mail-Count: 380848 X-Ml-Name: ruby-talk X-Rubymirror: Yes X-Ruby-Talk: <121ff4897c1b5f723f96d80c224270f1@ruby-forum.com> Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.ruby:2201 Phillip Gawlowski wrote in post #990664: > Anecdote: > My EE prof used Excel to invert a matrix. Took about 30 minutes, and > was far from obvious (I forgot how it was done, since it was > definitely something Excel wasn't designed to do), when a specialized > tool (Maple in this case), did the same job in one line of code, > following the mathematical notation (M_inverse := M^-1). Would that remark still apply if Excel had - let's say - a function MINVERSE() - a similar single line of code? Well, interestingly, I do believe it does. Have a look at eg http://www.chem.mtu.edu/~tbco/cm3450/Excel_Array_Formulas.pdf I suspect people don't realise what power Excel has, because hardly anyone talks about it. They either talk about everyday corporate number crunching or conventional programming lnaguages. Few people think about taking Excel's components and mixing them together to solve simultanaeous linear equations. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.