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Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

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Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#241

Post by mschuster91 »

sidcool wrote: post #228
mschuster91 wrote: post #221

This is NOT about "inefficiencies", "data security" or whatever. In big biz, the "finance chiefs" (or other persons with purchase authority) usually get pampered by vendors with expensive business trips or whatever... especially at the scales that require SAP or Oracle solutions. So this likely means: the CFOs bought some expensive software that promises to replace Excel without any due diligence, the staff looks at…

What's Accidenture?

"Nickname" for Accenture, an IT consulting/bodyshop famous for delivering stuff at waaay less than acceptable quality (or not delivering at all). In addition they're also known for exploiting their employees.

See also http://exposingevilempire.com/.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#242

Post by cjp »

sidcool wrote: post #228
mschuster91 wrote: post #221

This is NOT about "inefficiencies", "data security" or whatever. In big biz, the "finance chiefs" (or other persons with purchase authority) usually get pampered by vendors with expensive business trips or whatever... especially at the scales that require SAP or Oracle solutions. So this likely means: the CFOs bought some expensive software that promises to replace Excel without any due diligence, the staff looks at…

What's Accidenture?

A hilarious pun at Accenture's expense.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#243

Post by cr0sh »

Robotbeat wrote: post #174
mabbo wrote: post #18

I would argue that the most commonly used programming language is Excel. But few of the people using it realize they're programming. It's a brilliant reactive data programming model that makes intuitive sense to non-technical users. They feel empowered to use it to solve problems right now with a computer. They experiment with it, try things, Google how to do more things- just like any programmer does. And they feel…

Completely agree. It's common to tell kids (and everyone) that they need to "learn to code." That is what Excel already is! And it's incredibly powerful, especially if you don't have any other coding skills. But, of course, it's messy. When tens of millions of people can each write their own programs and easily modify them and change them to suit their own needs without needing to recompile or anything, then you get…

Craziest thing I ever found that someone did with excel was implementing a neural network using it. It was meant as a tutorial to teach how neural networks worked, and not meant for production systems, but I do wonder if anyone ever took it further.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#244

Post by zbentley »

sidcool wrote: post #228
mschuster91 wrote: post #221

This is NOT about "inefficiencies", "data security" or whatever. In big biz, the "finance chiefs" (or other persons with purchase authority) usually get pampered by vendors with expensive business trips or whatever... especially at the scales that require SAP or Oracle solutions. So this likely means: the CFOs bought some expensive software that promises to replace Excel without any due diligence, the staff looks at…

What's Accidenture?

Likely Accenture: https://www.accenture.com

Not sure if the misspelling is "accidental" or on purpose, in which case both it and this sentence are puns.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#245

Post by noobiemcfoob »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #222
jasode wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>making proper applications out of Excel workbooks Yes, exactly. If we're being uncharitable, we can spin Greenspun's 10th rule[1] of programming as: >"Any sufficiently complicated Excel spreadsheet contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of a proper centralized database." Or, if we're being charitable, we frame it as an internal MVP (Minimum Viable Product): >"Spreadsheets are the i…

>that will give the company the evidence and the confidence to spend $1 million and migrate the spreadsheet to a proper centralized database ...along with understanding that migrating at earlier stage would cost only $100K.

Migrating too early before a business flow is properly understood could lead to that reduced cost but also a product that doesn't quite fit the actual needs.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#246

Post by sidcool »

mschuster91 wrote: post #241
sidcool wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's Accidenture?

"Nickname" for Accenture, an IT consulting/bodyshop famous for delivering stuff at waaay less than acceptable quality (or not delivering at all). In addition they're also known for exploiting their employees. See also http://exposingevilempire.com/ .

Is it different from other giant IT services firms?

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#247

Post by osullivj »

dalbasal wrote: post #223
osullivj wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also because Excel is both an IDE for developing spreadsheets, and a GUI container for operating them. Splitting dev time and run time environments would help with control. When a dev supplies a user with a traditional .Net GUI app, they don't enable the user to hack the app by supplying a copy of VisualStudio alongside. Effectively, this is what Excel does.

Yes, but. It's no good if you fix excel by making it not excel. The whole reason excel is so popular is the intuitive, unintimidating but terribly wrong way it mixes data, code and GUI. Functions in the data, constants repeated in every row, hard coded variables all over the place. If you're just supplying a GUI and hiding the code, the user can't change, add or debug anymore. The point is that they can code, even if…

Agreed. But a different way of working the same trick is to have an alternate run time that can execute .xls[x|m] as a headless server process.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#248

Post by CJKinni »

R_haterade wrote: post #134
Gustomaximus wrote: post #5

The core complaint of not having a single source of truth seems more about how the company handles data/filing rather than Excel itself. Maybe I'm a bit bias having used Excel my entire career and very dependent on it, but everytime I've seen companies steer away from the desktop application with 0365/sheets/tableau its simply not as useful for adhoc data analysis and reporting.

>its simply not as useful for adhoc data analysis and reporting. You wanna know what's even more useful? Code notebooks. I store everything from my sql queries to my processing pipeline to my models, and my vizualizations. Most notebooks have slide-show modes now so your presentation to business stakeholders is simple to prepare as well, and with the right plotting packages you can draw interactive charts that do all…

Do you have any way you'd recommend of getting multiple users working together with code notebooks? I've messed around with Jupyter, but that's about it.

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#249

Post by zbentley »

deusofnull wrote: post #234

Sounds like their workflow is the problem, not their tool. I'm no shill for Excel, but it is without a doubt powerful and can be quite programmatic. Maybe Excel could get a plugin system like Atom or VS Code or Sublime that could handle integration with centralized platforms / databases. Just wondering: can you make an API call / ORM query to a database from within Excel macros? How much I/O can you do with macros?

You can do basically anything I/O within an Excel macro (VBA script):

You can talk to a database: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18313899/vba-new-databas...

Interact with the filesystem: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11528694/read-parse-text...

Open arbitrary sockets, with some caveats: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/125921/mswinsock-winsock...

And more!

Re: Stop Using Excel, Finance Chiefs Tell Staffs

#250

Post by osteele »

mabbo wrote: post #18

I would argue that the most commonly used programming language is Excel. But few of the people using it realize they're programming. It's a brilliant reactive data programming model that makes intuitive sense to non-technical users. They feel empowered to use it to solve problems right now with a computer. They experiment with it, try things, Google how to do more things- just like any programmer does. And they feel…

"The dynamic spreadsheet is a good example of such a tissuelike superobject. It is a simulation kit, and it provides a remarkable degree of direct leverage. Spreadsheets at their best combine the genres established in the 1970s (objects, windows, what-you-see-is-what-you-get editing and goal-seeking retrieval) into a “better old thing” that is likely to be one of the “almost new things” for the mainstream designs of the next few years.

"A spreadsheet is an aggregate of concurrently active objects, usually organized into a rectangular array of cells similar to the paper spreadsheet used by an accountant. […] A spreadsheet is a simulated pocket universe that continuously maintains its fabric; it is a kit for a surprising range of applications.”

– Alan Kay, “Computer Software”, Scientific American (1984). pp. 56–57. PDF: https://frameworker.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/alan-kay-com...

Republished as “Computer Software” (1984). pp. 6–7. PDF: http://home.cc.gatech.edu/guzdial/uploads/130/Alan%20Kay%20-...

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