Q for guys who create Excel sims

[basementproject]

Greetings all- lurker here popping out of the woodwork.

I've got a fairly accurate MLB moneyline system going in excel, and it's gotten pretty self-sufficient. Given that, I want to start having some fun, programming simulations.

What would be the best/most efficient way to go about creating sims on a computer? I'm highly experienced in HTML and JavaScript, dabbled in PHP, took a course in Turing... Which language would you reccomend learning next?

Thanks for the input.

[TomG]

I have a similar project using Excel for handicapping in my Robot thread. I would appreciate any comments on the methods I am using. Also, you are welcome to create your own thread where you post your daily MLB plays.

For sims, I would recommend learning to use R. It's free, handles large data sets easily, and is relatively simple to learn/use. It's designed for statistical computing so it has a lot of helpful tools already built into it.

[ncboiler]

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I have a similar project using Excel for handicapping in my Robot thread. I would appreciate any comments on the methods I am using. Also, you are welcome to create your own thread where you post your daily MLB plays.

For sims, I would recommend learning to use R. It's free, handles large data sets easily, and is relatively simple to learn/use. It's designed for statistical computing so it has a lot of helpful tools already built into it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to steal but I would like to ask you. How do you enter data into your spreadsheet? I do a lot of copying and pasting and it's not very efficient. I get my data from covers. I posted in your robot thread that I was doing a system similar to yours.

[TomG]

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[ QUOTE ]
I have a similar project using Excel for handicapping in my Robot thread. I would appreciate any comments on the methods I am using. Also, you are welcome to create your own thread where you post your daily MLB plays.

For sims, I would recommend learning to use R. It's free, handles large data sets easily, and is relatively simple to learn/use. It's designed for statistical computing so it has a lot of helpful tools already built into it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to steal but I would like to ask you. How do you enter data into your spreadsheet? I do a lot of copying and pasting and it's not very efficient. I get my data from covers. I posted in your robot thread that I was doing a system similar to yours.

[/ QUOTE ]
The method I am using is to use Data -> Import External Data -> New Web Query. Then direct Excel to URL on the internet that contains that table worth of data. This is the best approach since it makes it easy to refresh the data in Excel as the internet table is updated. You may also need to use Data -> Text to Columns to parse the data in Excel if it doesn't come across formatted the first time. Through clever usage of formulas and web queries, you should be able to avoid copying and pasting almost altogether.

This is all for Excel 2003. I'm not sure if this works with newer or later versions.

[ncboiler]

I use Open Office. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I have Office '97 on another computer but I doubt it will do it. I guess I will need to learn how to do it with OpenOffice. Thanks for your help.

[dudeimstoked]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have a similar project using Excel for handicapping in my Robot thread. I would appreciate any comments on the methods I am using. Also, you are welcome to create your own thread where you post your daily MLB plays.

For sims, I would recommend learning to use R. It's free, handles large data sets easily, and is relatively simple to learn/use. It's designed for statistical computing so it has a lot of helpful tools already built into it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to steal but I would like to ask you. How do you enter data into your spreadsheet? I do a lot of copying and pasting and it's not very efficient. I get my data from covers. I posted in your robot thread that I was doing a system similar to yours.

[/ QUOTE ]
The method I am using is to use Data -> Import External Data -> New Web Query. Then direct Excel to URL on the internet that contains that table worth of data. This is the best approach since it makes it easy to refresh the data in Excel as the internet table is updated. You may also need to use Data -> Text to Columns to parse the data in Excel if it doesn't come across formatted the first time. Through clever usage of formulas and web queries, you should be able to avoid copying and pasting almost altogether.

This is all for Excel 2003. I'm not sure if this works with newer or later versions.

[/ QUOTE ]

is there a way to get it to auto-update without having to redo the columns?

[TomG]

Hopefully the data source that you are querying is formatted such that you won't need to both refresh and redo the columns. If not, I would first recommend using a new data source. If that isn't an option, try playing around with the "Text" functions. Use functions such as =find, =search, =mid, =left, =right. You should be able to get just about any data formatted properly with these functions.

[dudeimstoked]

what site are u guys downloading the data from? im using espn and dougstats.

[TomG]

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what site are u guys downloading the data from? im using espn and dougstats.

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Those are the two sites I use also. I used Dougstats for the stuff from previous seasons and then I imported season to date information from ESPN.

[basementproject]

Nobody here uses BP stats?