Live data from Hacker News

Excel never dies (2021)

notboring.co

1–10 of 275 posts

Re: Excel never dies (2021)

#2
"Microsoft launched Excel in 1985 exclusively on the Macintosh. It was that counterintuitive decision to launch on its competitor’s computer while Lotus 1-2-3 was stuck on its own MS-DOS" - crazy that microsoft recognised its own deficiency (difficult UI) and took a big bet with their competitor. Microsoft and Apple's relationship has been complicated from the start

Re: Excel never dies (2021)

#5

"Microsoft launched Excel in 1985 exclusively on the Macintosh. It was that counterintuitive decision to launch on its competitor’s computer while Lotus 1-2-3 was stuck on its own MS-DOS" - crazy that microsoft recognised its own deficiency (difficult UI) and took a big bet with their competitor. Microsoft and Apple's relationship has been complicated from the start

My dad, a retired accountant, still refuses to switch from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel.

Re: Excel never dies (2021)

#6
As someone with a perhaps well deserved reputation as a Microsoft hater (ha, check my history..)

Microsoft Excel is perhaps the greatest program-slash-programming language ever invented. Nothing has much come close in terms of giving regular folks the power of general-purpose computing (sadly, further and further removed from what we're doing today.)

Re: Excel never dies (2021)

#7
True. In my last job I was unofficial HR, timekeeper, purchaser, schedule maker, everything.

My precessor used to do everything on paper. He had files of leave forms, monthly attendance timesheets, rotation scheudles etc.

I started using a excel sheet. One sheet named db, listing the employee number, names, start date, position, entitled leave days, manager name, work pattern (day only, any shift).

Then over time I added other sheets like leave details, which pulls employee data from db, and adds more data like their aprooved vacation slots etc.

A sheet listing every day of the year in columns, and rows as employee names & numbers, and I will manually tyoe N for Night, D for Day, F for Friday OFF, H for Holiday, V for Vacation.

Then another sheets pulls data & shows me for my chosen month a printed & formatted schedule. It also lists the percentage of workforce, and their divisions.

Another sheet pulls vacation data for one employee for my chosen year.

It was fun creating all those formulas.

Re: Excel never dies (2021)

#9
post #6

As someone with a perhaps well deserved reputation as a Microsoft hater (ha, check my history..) Microsoft Excel is perhaps the greatest program-slash-programming language ever invented. Nothing has much come close in terms of giving regular folks the power of general-purpose computing (sadly, further and further removed from what we're doing today.)

Hypercard.

The difference, of course, is that Excel wasn't abandoned by its owners like Hypercard was.

Re: Excel never dies (2021)

#10
Massive companies are run off dodgy Excel spreadsheets. I make my living from 3 completely different items of software (seating planner, task planner, data transformation). I'm sure Excel is the main competitor for all 3. The whole of western civilization might collapse if Excel were to suddenly disappear.
Post reply on HN