We use a spreadsheet to do gantt charts at work. Although Microsoft project is available, not everyone has installed it or knows how to use it. Everyone knows how to do basic Microsoft Excel. These schedules are only to a week granularity so we use one column for each week and each row becomes a task.
You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
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Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#72Honestly, I don't have a problem with the fact that Excel is used in so many cases - programming for non-programmers is important. My problem is that Excel is terrible . Its formula system is painful and the formulas are invisible. It's not that a light user DB/spreadsheet program is a bad idea, it's that Excel made a lot of terrible decisions 20 years ago and now they're married to them.
>My problem is that Excel is terrible ... the formulas are invisible.
Have you tried Ctrl-` ?
Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Little things like how terrible and confusing their formula language is. Anything beyond simple arithmetic requires two Googles per cell. Now, replacing it with Python isn't better - any language that uses double-equals-signs is not fit for a layman-programming-platform.
Your confidence in the layman is inspiring. Why is == more difficult to understand than parentheses for function calls, for example?
It's not that == is itself difficult to understand; it's that = doesn't mean equality in virtually all programming languages so they had to make up another symbol for it.
It's basically the first thing they have to teach you.
Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Much though some people might think that spreadsheets are not for serious work, they're being used for that right now, and that is unlikely to change. Better to figure out how to improve the tooling, rather than undertake the quixotic quest to get business people to abandon their perfectly viable programming tool. Its largely used by business people because they (1) have inadequate IT support to have things develop…
I disagree strongly with (1). If you just need to sum a list of numbers, or quickly calculate payroll or something, Excel does a fine job. For certain types of engineering calculations (the horror), Excel does a fine job. The overhead of having a full developer implement the tool is absurd, because many of these problems can and should be solved in less than 10 minutes of spreadsheet jockeying.
> If you just need to sum a list of numbers, or quickly calculate payroll or something, Excel does a fine job.
Sure, its great for lots of one-time quick calculations. I was really referring to its use in on-going operations with changing requirements where maintenance is necessary.
The problem comes in when something that is suitable as a one-off tool -- and perhaps, as such, might make a decent prototype for a proper ongoing, maintainable tool -- instead gets pressed into service as a production tool and becomes a sinkhole of technical debt.
Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#75Felienne Hermans has done some very interesting work examining how to refactor spreadsheets. ( http://www.felienne.com/publications ) Her PhD dissertation on the subject "Analyzing and Visualizing Spreadsheets" ( http://www.felienne.com/archives/2534 ) is particularly detailed. Much though some people might think that spreadsheets are not for serious work, they're being used for that right now, and that is unlikely t…
> Much though some people might think that spreadsheets are not for serious work, they're being used for that right now, and that is unlikely to change. Better to figure out how to improve the tooling, rather than undertake the quixotic quest to get business people to abandon their perfectly viable programming tool. Its largely used by business people because they (1) have inadequate IT support to have things develop…
A lot of people who have access to Excel also have access to Access - and a lot of what they do would be better served in database than a spreadsheet. Yet they don't use one - there must be a reason for that, and I don't think it's IT restrictions.
Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#76The beauty of Excel is its ability to do many things 'well enough' in a way that is accessible to a lot of people. My dad put together his architectural plans for a new house in Excel because it is a tool with which he felt comfortable. Some people do calendars in Excel while others try and recreate a full General Ledger system. Because it works well enough, people don't see the need to invest the time in learning a…
That's why I always thought it'd be a good idea for Microsoft to expose such a semantic layer via a .NET API. When you can program an Excel sheet using the .NET languages and have access to the broader .NET libraries then all kinds of interesting possibilities start to open up. The fact is business users love Excel and a great number of CRUD applications could be easily built on top of Excel if only we had a reasonab…
I always got the feeling the Office team and .NET team never got along well considering the completely lack of cohesion between _any_ of their respective products.
Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#77"… but I will not use Microsoft Excel to run a bank "
obviously you never worked in a big bank. Most traders use Excel a lot, if not in every moment of their work. It depends on the bank of course but in some banks even the trades are made from Excel spreadsheets.
Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Much though some people might think that spreadsheets are not for serious work, they're being used for that right now, and that is unlikely to change. Better to figure out how to improve the tooling, rather than undertake the quixotic quest to get business people to abandon their perfectly viable programming tool. Its largely used by business people because they (1) have inadequate IT support to have things develop…
I find points 1 and 2 difficult to believe as the primary reason people rely on Excel. I think the primary reason is as seanstickle suggested: Excel is the only programming environment many "business people" know and are comfortable in. I personally know people who use Excel for data analysis, and it's because they don't know a general purpose programming language. edit: Based on your other comments downthread, I rea…
> Based on your other comments downthread, I realized that you meant the IT department themselves should develop the application using "proper tooling", not the business people.
Not necessarily, though that really depends on the technical competencies in the organization and a number of other factors.
> That means that the business people will have to hand over requirements to the IT people, who will write the software.
Well, I kind of think that if you are going to have an organization that effectively uses technology, you need technology-aware process/system analysis embedded in operational organizations at a fairly low level facilitating process optimization including, as necessary, technology acquisition and software development. That's a pretty big culture change for most organizations that aren't technology organizations, I will admit.
> I think turn-around time may be too much for business people who want to do their own data exploration.
I don't think the problem area in Excel use is "data exploration", but, yes, I think that overly bureaucratic, insufficiently agile processes which separate software development from operations do create friction which leads to use of suboptimal tools -- including, but not limited to, use of Excel where its not appropriate.
Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least Python will ease the testing of the various functions you code. Everything won't be hidden inside cell all over the pages
Apparently the errors found were "transcription errors" not "programming errors." Using Excel or not then is irrelevant. Excel (and any other spreadsheet) is a nice and convenient tool to get easy tabular inputs and some results fast. Spreadsheets were one of the first useful programs on PCs.
With spreadsheets a lot of steps needlessly require human transcription (cut/paste, typing and so on). So there is a casual relation.
Re: You shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
#80I've worked for many large financial institutions as a quant and am intimately familiar with use of spreadsheets in critical functions. I believe this is a multi-billion dollar opportunity. If someone is interested in start-up ventures in this space, I would be very interested in discussing further.