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GeneralRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
trønderen22-Dec-20 14:26
trønderen22-Dec-20 14:26 
GeneralRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
BillWoodruff22-Dec-20 15:17
professionalBillWoodruff22-Dec-20 15:17 
GeneralRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
trønderen23-Dec-20 8:24
trønderen23-Dec-20 8:24 
GeneralRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
BillWoodruff23-Dec-20 8:42
professionalBillWoodruff23-Dec-20 8:42 
GeneralRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
OriginalGriff22-Dec-20 22:07
mveOriginalGriff22-Dec-20 22:07 
GeneralRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
trønderen23-Dec-20 8:10
trønderen23-Dec-20 8:10 
GeneralRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
OriginalGriff23-Dec-20 19:44
mveOriginalGriff23-Dec-20 19:44 
GeneralRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
trønderen24-Dec-20 9:44
trønderen24-Dec-20 9:44 
You are confusing different needs.

It may seem horrible to you, but I do my household accounting using Excel.
I do not use a Data Entry System to verify that my spending on a liter of milk, a loaf of bread or a kilogram of apples are "valid" prices for those products (except that a negative spending will stand out in red).
There may be (temporary) "omissions": Sometimes I am late in copying a receipt into the Excel, and I may discover it by the money in my billfold or bank account not matching what Excel claims there should be. Detecting it is a manual process.
I may be mistyping an amount, and overlook that the check column summing the line (i.e. all the sources - cash, account, card, ... - and the drains, which in my case is the various types of spending: food, transport, health, ...) is not zero.

Maybe I should develop an elaborate Data Entry system to validate every single amount against current product prices retrieved from a network service. Maybe it should flag as invalid my buying of a kilogram of Lapsang Suchong, because I bought another kilogram less than a week ago. Maybe it should raise an exception if I haven't bought a new toothbrush for half a year.

I am not going to do that, not even to make sure that "errors, omissions, additions, and plain mistakes" are caught. I never asked for a Household Spending Data Entry and Validator System. My friend never asked for a Data Entry and Validator System with lots of built-in domain knowledge and AI logic to detect missing or duplicated or illegal data.

He suggested a plain text file where he could edit the input data like a printed table, something resembling an CSV file (but fixed column layout rather than commas), and similar for results. I replied: "Wouldn't it be much better to do it as an Excel sheet? Then you can plot the input data. You can set up check columns to verify that values are within range. Values are nicely lined up, and do not end up in the wrong column due to a missing comma. You can have the output the same way, too, so you can use Excel to post-process them." He cheered: Great idea. Much better. The improvement was comparable to when I moved my household account from notebook and pencil to Excel.

Not at all do I take for granted that Excel is the ultimate solution for such needs. So I posted my question here, waiting for alternative proposals. You may argue that with unlimited resources, I could have a 100% perfect solution by developing a highly domain specific, AI based, dedicated Data Entry System for my household accounting, or for my friend's program. I think the cost would be far, far higher than the real benefits in practical use.

Such a 100% perfect Data Entry System may be the right answer to some questions, but not to mine.
AnswerRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
Gerry Schmitz23-Dec-20 6:46
mveGerry Schmitz23-Dec-20 6:46 
AnswerRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
Mycroft Holmes23-Dec-20 11:14
professionalMycroft Holmes23-Dec-20 11:14 
AnswerRe: Data format for non-computerist editing Pin
jschell29-Dec-20 6:54
jschell29-Dec-20 6:54 
QuestionHow to address SQL CE file path? Pin
Alex Dunlop22-Dec-20 7:46
Alex Dunlop22-Dec-20 7:46 
AnswerRe: How to address SQL CE file path? Pin
OriginalGriff22-Dec-20 8:45
mveOriginalGriff22-Dec-20 8:45 
QuestionWhy does NullReferenceException throw irrelevantly? I already tried - no success. Pin
Jens Eckervogt22-Dec-20 0:18
Jens Eckervogt22-Dec-20 0:18 
AnswerRe: Why does NullReferenceException throw irrelevantly? I already tried - no success. Pin
Richard MacCutchan22-Dec-20 1:06
mveRichard MacCutchan22-Dec-20 1:06 
AnswerRe: Why does NullReferenceException throw irrelevantly? I already tried - no success. Pin
OriginalGriff22-Dec-20 1:12
mveOriginalGriff22-Dec-20 1:12 
AnswerRe: Why does NullReferenceException throw irrelevantly? I already tried - no success. Pin
Gerry Schmitz22-Dec-20 3:33
mveGerry Schmitz22-Dec-20 3:33 
SuggestionSQLLight vs SQL CE Pin
Alex Dunlop20-Dec-20 8:16
Alex Dunlop20-Dec-20 8:16 
GeneralRe: SQLLight vs SQL CE Pin
Gerry Schmitz20-Dec-20 9:19
mveGerry Schmitz20-Dec-20 9:19 
GeneralRe: SQLLight vs SQL CE Pin
Mycroft Holmes20-Dec-20 11:15
professionalMycroft Holmes20-Dec-20 11:15 
QuestionHow to save panel content into PDF Pin
RedPandinus19-Dec-20 17:46
RedPandinus19-Dec-20 17:46 
AnswerRe: How to save panel content into PDF Pin
OriginalGriff19-Dec-20 19:57
mveOriginalGriff19-Dec-20 19:57 
SuggestionRe: How to save panel content into PDF Pin
RedPandinus19-Dec-20 20:30
RedPandinus19-Dec-20 20:30 
GeneralRe: How to save panel content into PDF Pin
OriginalGriff19-Dec-20 22:57
mveOriginalGriff19-Dec-20 22:57 
GeneralRe: How to save panel content into PDF Pin
RedPandinus20-Dec-20 6:07
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