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Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

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Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#21

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

noobhacker wrote: post #7
siruncledrew wrote: post #3

Aside from macros, keyboard shortcuts, and .xlsx files, why else would someone be compelled to stick with Excel? Seems like the rest of the tabular data stuff could be done in Google Sheets or some other product and yield the same results.

People are wedded to Excel because they've spent a lot of time learning it and don't want their skills to become obsolete. The resistance is rooted in psychological / political reasons, not technical ones.

Have you ever been a power user of Microsoft Excel? And then tried to replicate that functionality in Google Sheets?

Or is your aversion mostly to the M- word?

I find it funny that when it comes to vi vs emacs (or any such similarly geek-approved thing), fans of each will jump up in arms about the precise reason their platform is better, but the same kind of people would not want to take hundreds of thousands of business professionals at their word about why they like using a particular piece of software.

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#22

Post by adambard »

maxxxxx wrote: post #17
justboxing wrote: post #15

One huge reason why Finance pros in general, and Fund Managers, Brokers, Traders in particular, love Microsoft Excel is because all your formulas and calculations update almost instantly (unless you explicitly disable this feature). So they can apply their business and process knowledge to create tables and formulas, pull data from various sources, and create something that is self-contained, stored locally (inside t…

I can see this in my company. IT has for some reason decided to put some data into Hadoop. Now the users need to write spec documents for each little thing and every trivial report takes months to get done. Before they had Excel and could create whatever they needed in minutes. Us programmers don't always make life easier for end users. Often we create a level of bureaucracy. EDIT: I like a lot of the responses here.…

If you're putting Excel-sized data in Hadoop, something has gone seriously wrong in your IT department's decision-making process. It does make for a nice parable about the dangers of shiny-new-thing-syndrome though.

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#23

Post by alecco »

justboxing wrote: post #15

One huge reason why Finance pros in general, and Fund Managers, Brokers, Traders in particular, love Microsoft Excel is because all your formulas and calculations update almost instantly (unless you explicitly disable this feature). So they can apply their business and process knowledge to create tables and formulas, pull data from various sources, and create something that is self-contained, stored locally (inside t…

> The same excel workbook that let's the traders do their job would take months / years to convert to a web app, and even then, the speed may not match up.

Sorry but I have to call nonsense on that part. I've seen recently a whole trading operation converted to a system very close to a web app within 6 months. The hard part of the job was untangling the mess they created. And knowledgeable quants who actually program told us it's typical.

The financial pros have horrible, horrible stuff in their spreadsheets. They are used to it and they want (perhaps unconsciously) to keep their dirty hacks out of sight. Lest they fall from heaven.

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#24

Post by kgwgk »

siruncledrew wrote: post #3

Aside from macros, keyboard shortcuts, and .xlsx files, why else would someone be compelled to stick with Excel? Seems like the rest of the tabular data stuff could be done in Google Sheets or some other product and yield the same results.

VBA, forms, integration with data sources...

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#25

Post by michaelmrose »

maxxxxx wrote: post #17
justboxing wrote: post #15

One huge reason why Finance pros in general, and Fund Managers, Brokers, Traders in particular, love Microsoft Excel is because all your formulas and calculations update almost instantly (unless you explicitly disable this feature). So they can apply their business and process knowledge to create tables and formulas, pull data from various sources, and create something that is self-contained, stored locally (inside t…

I can see this in my company. IT has for some reason decided to put some data into Hadoop. Now the users need to write spec documents for each little thing and every trivial report takes months to get done. Before they had Excel and could create whatever they needed in minutes. Us programmers don't always make life easier for end users. Often we create a level of bureaucracy. EDIT: I like a lot of the responses here.…

Anything that can be done in minutes with Excel could be done in relatively short order via an actual programming language.

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#26

Post by natural219 »

Wasn't http://witheve.com/ supposed to solve this? I love Chris Granger and his team, but at this point he seems inclined to pivot ideas every 2-3 years, instead of following through with an industry-workable solution to some of these programming problems...

See also: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/savin...

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#27

Post by EpicEng »

alecco wrote: post #23
justboxing wrote: post #15

One huge reason why Finance pros in general, and Fund Managers, Brokers, Traders in particular, love Microsoft Excel is because all your formulas and calculations update almost instantly (unless you explicitly disable this feature). So they can apply their business and process knowledge to create tables and formulas, pull data from various sources, and create something that is self-contained, stored locally (inside t…

> The same excel workbook that let's the traders do their job would take months / years to convert to a web app, and even then, the speed may not match up. Sorry but I have to call nonsense on that part. I've seen recently a whole trading operation converted to a system very close to a web app within 6 months. The hard part of the job was untangling the mess they created. And knowledgeable quants who actually program…

Except excel is a generic solution. If you have to build a specific solution for each processes your costs skyrocket and people lose the ability to quickly implement something on their own. Everything takes forever to get done because you're constantly haggling with development and writing requirements instead of just opening excel and getting work done.

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#28

Post by cafard »

michaelmrose wrote: post #25
maxxxxx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see this in my company. IT has for some reason decided to put some data into Hadoop. Now the users need to write spec documents for each little thing and every trivial report takes months to get done. Before they had Excel and could create whatever they needed in minutes. Us programmers don't always make life easier for end users. Often we create a level of bureaucracy. EDIT: I like a lot of the responses here.…

Anything that can be done in minutes with Excel could be done in relatively short order via an actual programming language.

By accountants and financial analysts?

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#29

Post by j_s »

One interesting aspect of Excel is how a sheet can be shared in a way that a compiled executable can not.

Even with all the various viruses floating around, opening a spreadsheet is a common and allowed task as opposed to downloading, installing, and running software.

Edit: I suppose this point is mostly about the ubiquity of Excel as a platform. The interesting thing to me was that even otherwise prorietary models are more accessible distributed as Excel sheets than better-secured inside a custom tool.

Re: Finance Pros Say You’ll Have to Pry Excel Out of Their Cold, Dead Hands

#30

Post by osrec »

alecco wrote: post #23
justboxing wrote: post #15

One huge reason why Finance pros in general, and Fund Managers, Brokers, Traders in particular, love Microsoft Excel is because all your formulas and calculations update almost instantly (unless you explicitly disable this feature). So they can apply their business and process knowledge to create tables and formulas, pull data from various sources, and create something that is self-contained, stored locally (inside t…

> The same excel workbook that let's the traders do their job would take months / years to convert to a web app, and even then, the speed may not match up. Sorry but I have to call nonsense on that part. I've seen recently a whole trading operation converted to a system very close to a web app within 6 months. The hard part of the job was untangling the mess they created. And knowledgeable quants who actually program…

As someone who works with these guys daily, you're 100% correct! The only thing that makes them change is new regulations telling them they have to.
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