Frustrating inability of standard graphics programs do recognize discrete variables

"The Excel Chart Wizard does not offer the option of customising the y axis."

And it's people like this, folks, who are responsible for all the bad Wizard-spawned Excel default graphs out there.

That post (http://paperpools.blogspot.com/2008/05/losing-plot.html) and at least a couple of its comments are typical of the knee-jerk "Excel is Evil" attitude. Sure, Excel doesn't read your mind and consider your data as integers. Sure, the default formatting is pretty ugly. Excel makes it very easy to make almost any changes, like colors and other formatting, like axis scales.

Excel isn't beautiful, but it's very powerful, and with a small effort and an open mind, it can be made to do your bidding.

I just find Excel hard to use compared to R and other packages. There is an online article by Patrick Burns on some issues with Excel:

http://www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/spreadsheet_addiction.html

[My intent is not to bait Jon Peltier! :)]

Maybe the solution is that Microsoft be made aware of the problems.

Thanks for the link to Patrick Burns' interesting article.

We all know Excel has issues. However, most of the problems people face with Excel are due to unfamiliarity with its functionality, and to poor spreadsheet hygiene. Knowing how to use a spreadsheet (or any program for that matter) in a robust manner, and knowing where a spreadsheet (or any program) is ill-suited for a given task, are two vital realms of knowledge.