I heard a college official say a couple of years ago that one of the most valuable things to know these days is how to use a spreadsheet. I wrote a post in 2010 about the value of spreadsheets: https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/2010/06/spreadsheets.html
It is just as valuable today, maybe more so. My sister got me interested in the movie "The Professor and the Madman", based on the book by Simon Winchester about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. The work was begun in 1857. The article in the Wikipedia gives background and information about the work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary
The movie brings tears to my eyes for several reasons. One is the matter of search windows, spreadsheets, databases and computers.
As you watch the movie, which is about many very touching sides of humanity, you see scenes of small bits of paper all over the walls of the large office being used to try to capture every word in English, its meaning and its history. When I realize that these poor, belabored fellows were attempting this monumental task of filing and researching and noting and organizing WITHOUT OUR MODERN TOOLS (!!!!!!) of computers, electronic communication and electronic searching, I tear up. It is not all my tenderness and empathy. Even the characters get tired and confused and wonder what they are doing. After months and months of work, they feel that they may be nearing the end of the English words that begin with "A".
I think we could say that they had a picture of what they were trying to do. Their approach required highly literate men (evidently no women were involved for decades) but with human brains and hands alone, their project was monumental and not designed to accomplish what they hoped. Many people worked on the project. The professor was James Murray and the madman was W.C. Minor, a highly literate American surgeon but a man afflicted with serious mental disorder.
From the little bit I have learned, it seems that some of the impetus for the project was a plan of more or less capturing all of English in an authoritative source and putting the language on a "proper" footing once and for all. Just to give an idea of the extent of the project, the first edition was available in several separate parts over the years but the 2nd edition of 20 volumes was published in 1989. These days, the work has switched to online form and the current editor guesses that the whole thing will never be published on paper.
