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Most used VBA function:
Function SP(s,d,i) as string SP = split(s,d)(i) end function
Spreadsheets are also one of the only computer inventions post 80's (79 to be accurate) everything else was pretty much invented before the 80's.
Endless iterations, countless different scenarios, simulations of whatever what-if analysis you can think of, exact numbers to 10 decimal places... it all creates the perception of critical thinking and useful work.
Often, again in finance and investing, these things are actually only a way to make you feel like you did something useful. It is easy to do these things in excel - and you can show the numbers and the outputs that support all the "hard work" you did.
However, at the end of the day they are just numbers in a spreadsheet that you can make do whatever you want.
Critical thinking about investment rationale is lost, because it is hard and doesn't look robust because it is just words, and mindless number crunching is preferred because it is easy and looks robust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc
Flash forward to 1997, and a key part of the deal for MS investing in Apple is...you guessed it, Excel on the mac.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY&t=2m0s
Funny to think about next time some engineer is telling you how this or that new cloud software will 'totally replace spreadsheets.'
Spreadsheets powered the personal computing revolution - single handedly determined the winner of the OS wars (when people fled to first DOS and then windows after MSFT build Lotus into Excel).
Like em or hate em, spreadsheets are here to stay.
Excel remains one of my most used pieces of software, and one where I feel like any education/training has re-paid for itself multiple times over. The more you learn, the more productive you are (and sometimes more informed, thanks to data visualizations). OneNote (desktop) and Excel are the only two pieces of Microsoft Office that I regularly continue to use. They're the only reason I license it. Microsoft Word afte…
i recently got burned because at some point in the last few years Excel decided it would be better if it attempted to use localized thousands and decimal separators. item,cost,currency "Socks",1.234,USD Represents socks costing about a dollar in countries that use '.' as a decimal (most) and about a thousand dollars in countries that use a ','. In locales using a decimal period '.' double clicking will open the CSV j…
What changed in last few version is that excel started to distinguish whether you are "opening" an CSV file (eg. by double clicking it) or "importing" it and the former tends to lead to various kinds of random breakage in presence of the aforementioned (mis-)feature.