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I've never had to use JavaScript, but I've done the *1 or &"" in Excel to force conversion to the desired type... yes, let's mercifully lay the veil of forgetting over this.

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Considering Excel's offical way of writing a != b is a<>b, I think these kinds of hacks there can be excused :)

a<>b is the preferred syntax in SQL. I'm pretty sure a!=b works everywhere these days, but that hasn't always been the case.

(eta: didn't finish the thought - I'd assume SQL influenced Excel, since it's older.)

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