Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#11

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

nekopa wrote: post #4

dragonwriter wrote: post #3

The biggest problem with spreadsheets is that they are often used in lieu of more appropriate tools because of poorly considered IT policies and organizational practices which leave no other tools available to users and fail to provide adequate support for users on some tasks for which programming is required and other tools are more suitable.

Actually, I think this is the biggest strength of spreadsheets, that no one has taken advantage of yet. Most of what you term as poor IT policies is just what (in my personal experience) just users finding something that works for them. And software developers don't seem to take note of this. You are right that there are lots of better tools for tasks users use excel for, but 2 which spring to mind for me that devs h…

> Most of what you term as poor IT policies is just what (in my personal experience) just users finding something that works for them.

No, what I am terming "poor IT policies and organizational practices" is people being restricted as to what tools they are permitted to use in a blanket way that doesn't consider task specific needs, and having imposed difficult, inefficient, bureaucratic processes to get either permission to use other tools or support from the people that are permitted to use other tools, and/or which result in poor quality of support when those authorized to other tools do end up supporting them (often, again, because of inefficient, bureaucratic processes.)

You can disagree with my perception that this one of the biggest problems with spreadsheets, but please don't try to redefine what I'm actually talking about.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#12

Post by davelnewton » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

filipstachura wrote: post #10

davelnewton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tools that do that, even more simply than Excel does. That's a separate issue, e.g., app discovery, corporate approval in some cases, and people unwilling to use the best tool for the job.

Or maybe those tools lack some features and that's why people decide to improvise with spreadsheets?

... No, my comment is specifically targeted at the example of making simple boxes, lines, and text. There are trivial tools for making diagrams where the barrier of entry is lower, and the ease of use is higher. I provided reasons why those tools aren't being used more.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#13

Post by tmaly » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

I have generated thousands of reports in the form of excel spreadsheets. Here are my biggest gripes

1. lack of good meta data so I can process spreadsheets after they have been reviewed. Right now I use named ranges with a keyword but its very limiting.

2. lack of a good build in scripting language that is easily to use, has good 3rd party libraries, and makes automation easy. I am not big on excel macros, it would be nice to have a lua or python built in as an addon.

3. difficult/not straight forward to interact with external data sources. It would be great if I could easily pull data in from a web service. I guess if #2 was there, this might be easier.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#14

Post by sankethkatta » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

tmaly wrote: post #13

I have generated thousands of reports in the form of excel spreadsheets. Here are my biggest gripes 1. lack of good meta data so I can process spreadsheets after they have been reviewed. Right now I use named ranges with a keyword but its very limiting. 2. lack of a good build in scripting language that is easily to use, has good 3rd party libraries, and makes automation easy. I am not big on excel macros, it would b…

2. Checkout Data Nitro (YC S12) https://datanitro.com/ It allows you to script excel with Python.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#15

Post by debacle » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 3:25 PM UTC

marekr wrote: post #9

debacle wrote: post #7

There needs to be an easier way to transition from spreadsheets to an application. A spreadsheet that was based on programming principles rather than business principles would be fantastic. Also, a spreadsheet that was much more scriptable for someone who didn't want to learn VB.NET would be a dream, as a programmer. Disclaimer: I don't generally pay for software out of my own pocket.

Do you mean transition from specific spreadsheets you would already have for that task? Or in a wider sense, e.g. as a company - gradually transition from using spreadsheets to using applications for some of the tasks?

I mean I should be able to take a spreadsheet, properly configured, and turn it into a CRUD app through some sort of wizard.

Or, as a programmer, I should be able to massage an existing spreadsheet (to confirm data types, maybe add some validations) and have that be able to be wrung through a CRUD app generator.

People use spreadsheets because they combine business logic, data, and a simple user interface into a single document. 99% of spreadsheets should actually be CRUD apps (in my experience, at least) but it's not worth the hassle of going that route until you already have close to 30 MB of unstructured, manually edited data.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#16

Post by Velox » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 4:02 PM UTC

tmaly wrote: post #13

I have generated thousands of reports in the form of excel spreadsheets. Here are my biggest gripes 1. lack of good meta data so I can process spreadsheets after they have been reviewed. Right now I use named ranges with a keyword but its very limiting. 2. lack of a good build in scripting language that is easily to use, has good 3rd party libraries, and makes automation easy. I am not big on excel macros, it would b…

Depending on what you are trying to "script" with it, Add-Ins for Office might be good to check out? They are more focused on user interaction rather than scripting currently, but may be useful? They are written using HTML and JavaScript: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/fp142185.asp...

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#17

Post by BjoernKW » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 4:06 PM UTC

marekr wrote: post #9

debacle wrote: post #7

There needs to be an easier way to transition from spreadsheets to an application. A spreadsheet that was based on programming principles rather than business principles would be fantastic. Also, a spreadsheet that was much more scriptable for someone who didn't want to learn VB.NET would be a dream, as a programmer. Disclaimer: I don't generally pay for software out of my own pocket.

Do you mean transition from specific spreadsheets you would already have for that task? Or in a wider sense, e.g. as a company - gradually transition from using spreadsheets to using applications for some of the tasks?

We're doing the latter (on a rather small scale, mind you), transitioning existing Excel-based applications to scalable, robust architectures: http://excelkoenner.de/ (German-only right now, sorry)

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#18

Post by digikata » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 4:18 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #7

There needs to be an easier way to transition from spreadsheets to an application. A spreadsheet that was based on programming principles rather than business principles would be fantastic. Also, a spreadsheet that was much more scriptable for someone who didn't want to learn VB.NET would be a dream, as a programmer. Disclaimer: I don't generally pay for software out of my own pocket.

I think that used to be Microsoft Access, but as a product I think it lost focus on the easy transition. I remember as an intern using a pre-Microsoft FoxPro (all text GUI) that was so easy to setup as an app backed by a database with CRUD forms & reports.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#19

Post by Bostonian » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 4:19 PM UTC

In spreadsheets you often repeat the same formula many times. In a programming language you would not write

C2 = B2/B1 - 1

C3 = B3/B2 - 1

C4 = B4/B3 - 1

ad infinitum. You would store the B's and C's in arrays and write a loop, or use array operations in languages that supported them.

In Excel, if you have stock prices in column B, you compute stock returns in column C by entering "=B2/B1 - 1" in cell C2 and copying the formula for the whole column. But nothing stops you from inadvertently changing the formula in cell C100.

Re: Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

#20

Post by pc86 » Thu, Jul 23, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

Bostonian wrote: post #19

In spreadsheets you often repeat the same formula many times. In a programming language you would not write C2 = B2/B1 - 1 C3 = B3/B2 - 1 C4 = B4/B3 - 1 ad infinitum. You would store the B's and C's in arrays and write a loop, or use array operations in languages that supported them. In Excel, if you have stock prices in column B, you compute stock returns in column C by entering "=B2/B1 - 1" in cell C2 and copying t…

Not exactly a fix to what you're referring to, but if the data is formatted as a table the formula is copied to every cell automatically.