There was a new app posted here a few weeks ago that combined a Jupyter notebook with a spreadsheet-like automatic recalculation. Does anyone here know what it's called?
You mean https://observablehq.com/?
I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
31–40 of 378 posts
Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#32My issue with spreadsheets is that they could be improved a lot with minimal changes, not nobody seems to do it in popular office packages. Making them more database-like and making table data first-class (at least you can make named tables in excel on windows) could be used to push people a bit more towards organised data, without changing how anything works. Half of the mess that makes excel hell comes from the fac…
We (https://sheetjs.com/) almost exclusively deal with those types of complex applications built in spreadsheets
> they could be improved a lot with minimal changes
They can be improved for very specific use cases at the expense of others.
> Making them more database-like and making table data first-class (at least you can make named tables in excel on windows) could be used to push people a bit more towards organised data, without changing how anything works.
There are "database functions" like DAVERAGE, PivotTables and other systems for dealing with more structured data. Getting users to use them is a challenge outside of the scope of the tool. "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink"
> Half of the mess that makes excel hell comes from the fact it's too easy to put two tables of data + some random constants on a single sheet and refer to them by H3.
Half of the reason Excel is so popular is the loose structure and the power that it enables.
> Now it's hard to add more data, hard to move anything, and hard to create space which expands to the next row with existing formulas.
Most of the hairy workbooks start as a solution to a problem at hand and eventually accumulate cruft after people try expanding it, not too dissimilar to other forms of software development.
> Airtable (and Access) implements this idea, but unfortunately sacrifices the generic, free-form spreadsheet along the way.
You either enforce the constraints and weaken the platform, or you give users the power to do what they want.
Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#33I work in critical infrastructure planning. My organization builds software in R, Python, and other programming languages customized for these major organizations. So many critical infrastructures, billions of dollars in planning, and just systems are built out of Excel. It's amazing. You'd assume something that services millions of people a day would have some more sophisticated and customized solution, but you're w…
On the same hardware, with the same table, Excel in Windows 7 does a cross-tab faster than MySQL in Ubuntu does. Indeed, MySQL chokes if there are more than a few hundred columns, but Excel just keeps going. And it uses all CPU cores.
Edit: In case anyone is wondering why I did that, I wanted a simple visualization of ping-location results for thousands of IPv4 from several hundred ping-probe locations. So that meant aggregating (getting minimum rtt for) millions of observations, and displaying min(rtt) in a IPv4 by probe location cross-tab. MySQL did a great job at the aggregation, but choked (as in, errored out) with several hundred numeric columns. Even if I converted them all to SMALLINT.
Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#34Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#35My issue with spreadsheets is that they could be improved a lot with minimal changes, not nobody seems to do it in popular office packages. Making them more database-like and making table data first-class (at least you can make named tables in excel on windows) could be used to push people a bit more towards organised data, without changing how anything works. Half of the mess that makes excel hell comes from the fac…
That's what Excel Tables are for.
You get a table within your spreadsheet and instead of using cell references like =Sum(C2:C7), you can use structured reference like =SUM(DeptSales[Sales Amount])
Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t the most relevant distinction when comparing a spreadsheet to programming is that it’s non-procedural? Writing spreadsheets reminds of writing Makefiles. There’s no start or end. Just a bunch of declarations about relationships. And it’s just...happens.
There's a term that's gaining popularity in the last 15 years: reactive paradigm of programming.
Is what we're talking about any different from declarative programming? That term has been in use for several decades
Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#37My issue with spreadsheets is that they could be improved a lot with minimal changes, not nobody seems to do it in popular office packages. Making them more database-like and making table data first-class (at least you can make named tables in excel on windows) could be used to push people a bit more towards organised data, without changing how anything works. Half of the mess that makes excel hell comes from the fac…
I'd recommend watching this YouTube video; it's only one person's take on the right way to use Excel, but Excel has many ways to handle these issues:
Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#38I work in critical infrastructure planning. My organization builds software in R, Python, and other programming languages customized for these major organizations. So many critical infrastructures, billions of dollars in planning, and just systems are built out of Excel. It's amazing. You'd assume something that services millions of people a day would have some more sophisticated and customized solution, but you're w…
Can I ask, what is "critical infrastructure planning"? Googled it, but wasn't sure as it appears to transcend many contexts.
Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#39I can bundle my work in an iPython/Jupyter notebook, and if I'm feeling really frisky, I can package that in a Docker container.
I expect anybody with a computer can now replicate my work, and not pay the cost of an Microsoft Excel license.
Re: I was wrong about spreadsheets (2017)
#40My issue with spreadsheets is that they could be improved a lot with minimal changes, not nobody seems to do it in popular office packages. Making them more database-like and making table data first-class (at least you can make named tables in excel on windows) could be used to push people a bit more towards organised data, without changing how anything works. Half of the mess that makes excel hell comes from the fac…
We ( https://sheetjs.com/ ) almost exclusively deal with those types of complex applications built in spreadsheets > they could be improved a lot with minimal changes They can be improved for very specific use cases at the expense of others. > Making them more database-like and making table data first-class (at least you can make named tables in excel on windows) could be used to push people a bit more towards organi…
> You either enforce the constraints and weaken the platform, or you give users the power to do what they want.
I disagree with that. All the pieces are already there. There's nothing to weaken by education. But nothing tells the new users about them. They see the main screen and rarely ever know about multiple sheets. I've seen people using excel at work for years without knowing that. You don't have to take anything away from them, just go: hey, did you know there's a better way?
I know it's possible because I introduced a few people to named ranges, sheets, and data tables. All were happy to apply them later. (On their own)