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Originally Posted by JVN
"...To take an extreme analogy: "I have a nailgun but I don't use it for building my house, because I want to make sure I'm really good at hammering."
If you have a true understanding of these numbers, a design spreadsheet is an incredibly helpful resource. If you don't know what you're doing... you can mess around and maybe come up with something passable. Most people will take the time to learn the underlying principles...-JV
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Now John, not only can you hammer, but you could probably design and build a (better) nail gun as well. As for others, I would probably make sure they could hammer before I would hand them a nail gun. (And if they didn't, but wanted to learn, I'd be happy to teach them).
I agree with you whole-heartedly that spreadsheets are WONDERFUL for what-ifs and iterations. That said, I don't think I would trust the answer of anyone using them if they did not know the calculations behind them, unless they could validate their work by some other means.
Regardless of how one comes up with a solution, one should ALWAYS ask "Does this answer make sense?", and then verify it. I always like to double-check my calculations using another tack (i.e. virtual work, solving it backwards, etc.) , just to see if it does. Sometimes it's a quick run through in my head, other times it involves using a spreadsheet as a "printing calculator", to verify my numbers and have an additional audit trail for assurance.