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Microsoft fixes the Excel feature that was wrecking scientific data
(www.theverge.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
It's no good having this as part of the user options. It should be a sheet characteristic and the default should be "keep cells exactly as entered regardless of data type".
Changing the default will break the workflows of tens of thousands in the business industry
Scientists should be using something like MATLAB, not Excel.
Matlab is used, if at all, by physicists.
We're talking about molecular biologists.
They're not doing their analysis in Excel. MATLAB solves no problems here?
You could make a new filetype, default new versions to it, & not break compatibility. Wouldn't do anything for existing workbooks, and keep xlsx an option, but "it would break compatibility" is not a be-all end-all argument against this.