Issue 42247

Hi,
One of the most annoying problems found in nearly every commercial software 
package for ANY type of program, whether its a word processor, spreadsheet, 
database, presentation, graphics, CAD, specialized, programming language, is 
the fact that they NEVER seem to offer a TIME STAMP and DATE STAMP function.  

At least one that isn't broken down into its programming components that you're 
supposed to somehow try and figure it out.  

Of course no one ever can ever figure out HOW to create an unchanging DATE 
STAMP on a spreadsheet or document because date and time functions in 
commercial software packages are always monsterously hard to use, and 
monsterously hard to work with, and absolutely RIDICULOUS to try and figure 
out.  (* please seem my comment at the end, after my signature.)
This kind of thing, working with ANY commercial or free software has been my 
experience for over 20 years of having worked with computers.  

The only place I know where this happens is in the microsoft notepad.exe 
program when you use the ".LOG" feature typed at the top of the page.  And even 
discovering that this feature is available is practically impossible becuase 
who in the WORLD would ever think that a date and time stamp would be 
called "Log".  It just makes no sense in the real world (although I do know 
that it makes sense in the programming world.)  But, of course, when you go to 
a spreadsheet the LOG function means the logarithm, and when you go to the date 
and time functions you enter a wonderland of functions that seem to make no 
sense and requires an artist to wizardly weave them into a magic spell that 
produces some sort of date and time that is correct for the problem and STILL 
it must be formatted.

But, please let me be clear here.  What I mean by DATE STAMP is that it is a 
function that inserts the current date at the time the function is first run, 
but then does NOT change it to the current date the next time the function is 
run.  This gives the effect (if it were an old-fashioned ink and stamp pad that 
people used to use to stamp "Received" or "Paid" or anything else they wanted 
onto a sheet of paper) of "stamping" the current date into the formula.  
A "stamp" ing of the date that DOESNT CHANGE in future recalculations of that 
formula.  It would only change if something else in the formula was change OR 
(and maybe this is a better idea) if the cell contents were deleted and the 
sell was again a "virgin" and you were starting its use all over again.

All this that works for date stamp should also be made availabe for a time 
stamp too, as well as a current file name stamp and a current file location 
stamp.

If these four things were added as real functions that worked in the 
spreadsheet and were NOT CONFUSING to use and didn't require anything but the 
formatting and were NOT an add-in, you would have something to offer that no 
other program offers right now.  Check me out on this.  If you ask anybody, 
ANYBODY, anywhere, this issue is one that always inflames the user and is 
always frustating and ONLY comes up when someone is already in the middle of 
doing something else and needs it fast only to discover its just something all 
programmers seem to have avoided providing to everyday users in a simple way, 
but usually not at all.  Were you to add these, your program would be better 
than any other program that exists today in any catagory of end-user programs.

Ask around.  Ask everyday office workers.  Ask them and if you ask them 
correctly so that they understand what you're asking they will explode with 
irritation for a problem that has gone unaddressed by the software community 
during its ENTIRE HISTORY of providing help to the everyday computer user who 
uses their computer for their work and not for programming.

Thank you for listening.  I hope you will add these four functions into the 
main spreadsheet program, and into any other program where one can insert 
functions, including the text and database programs, as well as your function 
builder.

Johnnie Miller
Dallas, Texas
Disgrunteled Office Worker Annoyed With ALL Spreadsheet Programs That Exist In 
the World Today as of: [..\\#ooops, could have used a DATE STAMP and TIME STAMP 
right here, one that DIDN'T CHANGE every time you opened this inquiry... ]


* (Often the software does provide a way, by requiring you bump up to 
its "programming language".  Of course no everyday user who has a job doing 
something other than programming has the time and/or the ability to figure out 
all that crap on the fly when their boss is yelling at them to get some special 
report out for their board of directors...  for example, the "dim" statement? 
give me a break.  It is a stupid name.  It took me forever to figure out what 
it meant.  The concept is simple, but the concept is never presented, only the 
stupid abbrev "dim" that is sooooooooooooo confusing to anybody.  Just look at 
the three letters in the command "dim", they spell the word 'dim'.  This is 
just STUPID.  For visual people the word 'dim' implys "more difficult to see 
then most things".  Hence, using the word "dim" as the name with which to 
define a variable is stupid, because all the other definitions associated with 
the word "dim" imply things like difficult to see (which can also have a 
metaphoricial meaning meaning hard to understand), or might be short for any 
number of words like dimension, or dime, or diminish, or diminutive, or 
dimorphous, or dimple, or even -once you begin to discover how crazily named 
most programming words are- dim sum, cause who knows, maybe 'dim' is short 
for 'dim sum' which, in the real world is a food, but in this case of 
programming it could possible be a summary of all the dim's, or the result of 
the adding together of all the dim's into a dim sum, or whatever the some such 
gibbersh.  Who knows?  The everyday user is constantly confonted with too many 
programming code words which mean nothing but with which the programmers think 
they have "helped" the everyday user.  Everyday users simply can't use most of 
these programming modes you get bumped up to use for simple tasks that the 
programmers didn't feel like researching to discover exist or just don't want 
to bother with.  Why?  Because they can, like an artist, see the code and see 
it for what it is, elements to create something.  Much like paints to a painter 
or wood to a builder or anyone who creates.  But everyday users don't see 
these "helpful" programming modules they get bumped up to when they want to do 
something routine as an exciting colorful pallette of colorful opportunity, as 
a computer programming artist would see them.  Instead they see them as a 
monsterous mish-mash of gibberish that means nothing, has no help (or stupid 
help that doesn't define anything, or help that never suggests how one might 
build something helpful...i.e. if you've never seen a house before but you know 
you need to get out of the rain and you've been given a pile of wood and some 
nails, how do you know that it is a HOUSE that you need to build and how do you 
know HOW to build it and how do you even IMAGINE it.  The functions must be 
named something reasonable for the language that the user speaks, NOT be an 
abbreviation of another word,  NOT be something that inadvertantly spells out 
another word from the users language which might have other means or 
connotations, and which MUST have a real and complete definition, GOOD examples 
(of which there should be at least 10 and no more than 20), and just simply 
pass the all-around "this makes sense in the real world cause end-users not 
people paid to program computers will be using it" test.

Little help?)