Tech

Hedge your bets

Excel is the sort of thing that gives software a bad name with its seemingly random behaviour and arbitrary limits. Here's an error message I saw yesterday:

This file was created with a later version of Excel. There is a remote possibility that certain workbook properties specific to the later version may be lost if you save the file in this version.

"Remote possibility" and "may be lost"? Don't tax yourself, Excel. Hedge your bets. What you really meant was "certainty" and "will be lost". You also omitted "I'll make such a hash of saving this file that it won't even open in the other version".