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Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#31

Post by eggoa »

Bostonian wrote: post #19

In spreadsheets you often repeat the same formula many times. In a programming language you would not write C2 = B2/B1 - 1 C3 = B3/B2 - 1 C4 = B4/B3 - 1 ad infinitum. You would store the B's and C's in arrays and write a loop, or use array operations in languages that supported them. In Excel, if you have stock prices in column B, you compute stock returns in column C by entering "=B2/B1 - 1" in cell C2 and copying t…

You can use array formulas to make one formula operate on many values at once. In your example, there'd be one same formula in C2:C4 which would be {=B2:B4/B1:B3-1}.

When I had to use Excel a lot I would follow this pattern as much as possible. (As a side effect, every normal Excel user I worked with hated maintaining my workbooks.)

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#32

Post by SteveLAnderson »

brudgers wrote: post #22

Product Owner Perspective: Spreadsheets are extremely powerful, highly flexible, ubiquitous and very easy to use. If that's a problem then we need more problems. It is trivial to make a trivial spreadsheet but the last real competitor to Excel was Borland Quattro Pro in the early 1990's. Google has to give away their product.

Person that works with a product owner that likes spreadsheets perspective: Spreadsheets are an incredibly painful way to track product work. We really track our work other ways that actually help us, then, we duplicate that tracking by pasting it into the spreadsheet so that you are happy.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#33

Post by brudgers »

SteveLAnderson wrote: post #32
brudgers wrote: post #22

Product Owner Perspective: Spreadsheets are extremely powerful, highly flexible, ubiquitous and very easy to use. If that's a problem then we need more problems. It is trivial to make a trivial spreadsheet but the last real competitor to Excel was Borland Quattro Pro in the early 1990's. Google has to give away their product.

Person that works with a product owner that likes spreadsheets perspective: Spreadsheets are an incredibly painful way to track product work. We really track our work other ways that actually help us, then, we duplicate that tracking by pasting it into the spreadsheet so that you are happy.

Tracking product work is just one use case. The power of spreadsheets is their flexibility and general applicability. I would be sympathetic to your plight, but I had a boss who wrote letters in Lotus 123 in the DOS days. There was no place from which to copy and paste because there was no multi-tasking. The only upside is that Lotus 123 was better than edlin.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#34

Post by misterdata »

Bostonian wrote: post #19

In spreadsheets you often repeat the same formula many times. In a programming language you would not write C2 = B2/B1 - 1 C3 = B3/B2 - 1 C4 = B4/B3 - 1 ad infinitum. You would store the B's and C's in arrays and write a loop, or use array operations in languages that supported them. In Excel, if you have stock prices in column B, you compute stock returns in column C by entering "=B2/B1 - 1" in cell C2 and copying t…

Use Excel's tables feature, and it will more or less force a column to contain the same formula for each row (or a numeric value). In these formulas you can refer to other cells in a row by column name.

https://support.office.com/en-ca/article/Overview-of-Excel-t...

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#35

Post by vmorgulis »

digikata wrote: post #18
debacle wrote: post #7

There needs to be an easier way to transition from spreadsheets to an application. A spreadsheet that was based on programming principles rather than business principles would be fantastic. Also, a spreadsheet that was much more scriptable for someone who didn't want to learn VB.NET would be a dream, as a programmer. Disclaimer: I don't generally pay for software out of my own pocket.

I think that used to be Microsoft Access, but as a product I think it lost focus on the easy transition. I remember as an intern using a pre-Microsoft FoxPro (all text GUI) that was so easy to setup as an app backed by a database with CRUD forms & reports.

I used FoxPro too (text based and windows). I liked a lot the command approach to access the database.

I don't see something as much convenient in nowadays softwares. All are based on multitiers, SQL and frameworks.

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