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I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

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Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#11
post #8

I feel the same way about Access, too. It doesn't matter whether they're "real programming", it matters that they let real people solve real world problems for themselves, who otherwise would have to pay real programmers real money to develop real applications.

Citizen developers in an organization are not a bad thing. But it is important to properly support them, with the right tools and training, but especially when the harder problems need to be addressed by specialists.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#12
post #8

I feel the same way about Access, too. It doesn't matter whether they're "real programming", it matters that they let real people solve real world problems for themselves, who otherwise would have to pay real programmers real money to develop real applications.

Yeah, Access got me started learning SQL. And Jet is actually not a bad database engine.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#13
This video by Joel Spolsky taught me a lot of new Excel tricks/QoL improvements:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c

It is amazing how rich the ecosystem is. I didn't know about pivot tables. Excel has always impressed me, and continues to do so the more I learn.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#17
Funnily enough, excel is a programming language. I don't mean VB Script or macros. I mean with the equations, ranges, and constraints - that's a programming languages there.

A cell is simply a computational variable (as opposed to the notion of variables in lambda calculus). A named range is a data structure (a struct). The rest are term rewriting

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#18

This video by Joel Spolsky taught me a lot of new Excel tricks/QoL improvements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c It is amazing how rich the ecosystem is. I didn't know about pivot tables. Excel has always impressed me, and continues to do so the more I learn.

The other classic example is the disgraced Martin schkreli:

https://youtu.be/jFSf5YhYQbw

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#19
Worked on a simulation game in the 80s.. boss coded the entire world simulator as an excel spreadsheet.. I then wrote a tool to compile that spreadsheet and its formulas into 68k assembly language that would run the sim for 1 tick. It worked Amazingly well. I have never doubted the power of spreadsheets since then, and whenever a problem in a similar domain comes up, it's one of my go to tools.

Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)

#20
post #8

I feel the same way about Access, too. It doesn't matter whether they're "real programming", it matters that they let real people solve real world problems for themselves, who otherwise would have to pay real programmers real money to develop real applications.

Has Access solved the corruption issue that plagued it for tens of years? While you can connect it to a "real" database engine trivially, a common use-case is via a single MDB file that could become damaged.

You could damage the MDB a number of ways including:

- Leave Access running before shutdown (or power loss)

- Intermittent network outage to the file server

- Multiple users trying to access the same MDB (or anti-virus scans/locks, even on another user's machine)

- JET inconsistent versions / Access inconsistent versions / Patch Levels

The biggest headache though with Microsoft Access was never the product itself. It was that the product didn't really have a natural evolution. You'd start with a single MDB/single employee, but one day you'd need two employees or more (and security, and more tables, and this and that), and while you could migrate the MDB into a real database engine ($$$) and use Access as the front end, the record locking was funky and scaled poorly (plus control was limited).

The whole product felt a bit like a mouse-trap. A nice shiny piece of cheese, that genuinely tasted good/worked well, but as soon as you tried to move it SNAP. I don't dislike Access, but it was always painful when a business outgrew it (whereas Fortune 500 companies live and die on Excel).

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