Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells? • Hacker News Board

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#221

Post by chanandler_bong » Mon, Apr 04, 2022, 10:40 PM UTC

pete_nic wrote: post #25

chanandler_bong wrote: post #3

"A spreadsheet is then the simplest, most organically natural way of organizing discrete units of information, the easiest way to perform CRUD operations on any type of data." So... you've basically answered the question here. "It’s been 40 years since the original Visicalc spreadsheet program was released, and no one has been able to beat them" There is a reason that columnar workbooks and spreadsheets have been aro…

I agree. There may be no better UX alternative than columnar spreadsheets. Excel shines in scenario analysis when, for example, the data comes from your head. I believe Excel has an opportunity to improve when data comes from external sources like CSV dump from a CRM. I would like to see Excel improve the way it allows you to extract data from other systems which would reduce redundant effort and decrease the likelih…

Oh God... flashbacks to hacking ODBC connections to Access databases! ACK!

But yeah, it would be cool if you could pull directly from an API in to Excel. Or directly parse JSON input without having to mangle it in jq first.

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#222

Post by abrazensunset » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 2:48 AM UTC

__mharrison__ wrote: post #176

kpierce wrote: post #85

Trillions of decisions have been made off a tool that has poor error handling and data consistency issues. Blame is not entirely on either the user or the software, but the tool is too trusted without validation. [Study that was at the core for Europe's austerity and European debt crisis contained excel errors when fixed showed the inverse of original hypothesis.]( https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-t…

I don't feel that Python is out of reach for most who are using Excel with vlookups. I do feel that most Pandas code is poorly written and thus not at all compelling to replace Excel. (My background is that I teach Python and Data Science to large corps.)

+1, the Pandas API is somewhere between mediocre and bad, and results in garbage code unless you use it in a carefully constrained way (which is admittedly true of many complete languages, much less libraries that organically evolved several tooling generations ago)

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#223

Post by Psyladine » Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

conductr wrote: post #204

Psyladine wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go farther. Would the results have ever been validated if the source of truth was not a universal format easily interpretable by millions?

I think what you're touching on is complexity and how many people tend to trust complexity because it's too difficult to validate and you must know what you're doing if you built something so complex. Even in a corporate environment, I use spreadsheets to support big decisions every day, the format is as you say universal and easily interpretable, but many people never go that far. They trust that I did it correctly…

Bikeshed effect writ large, I'm afraid.

It's not our fault, our brains are wired to find quick & dirty; simple not small is beautiful. But people also contemptuous of what they understand, and accept at face value what they don't. Michael Crichton, much disparaged in his later years for contentious political stances, had much of value to say in his Gell-Mann Amnesia Effects' "wet sidewalks cause rain" critique of how we parse information.

Still, I'm glad it's transparent in this case and thus exposable. How much more is hidden, guarded jealously even, as though methodology was trade secret instead of, you know, the underpinnings of proposed outcome?