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Ask HN: What are the biggest problems with spreadsheets?

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

#21

Post by ForEnglandJames »

pc86 wrote: post #20
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.

Have used exactly this feature in a freelancing gig to help contain data entry/formula copying errors.

I just wish it were less obtuse to set up.

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

#22

Post by brudgers »

Product Owner Perspective: Spreadsheets are extremely powerful, highly flexible, ubiquitous and very easy to use. If that's a problem then we need more problems.

It is trivial to make a trivial spreadsheet but the last real competitor to Excel was Borland Quattro Pro in the early 1990's. Google has to give away their product.

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

#23

Post by jotux »

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…

>But nothing stops you from inadvertently changing the formula in cell C100.

I'm not sure how recent this feature is but excel will actually warn you in you change a formula in the middle of a series of cells that all use the same formula. I was getting "inconsistent formaula" warnings just yesterday when I was trying to make a spreadsheet.

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

#24

Post by jtfairbank »

Hospital staffing schedules are created and distributed via excel. It's really bad... and part of why healthcare is so expensive.

I started ReSchedule Med [0] to tackle this problem, starting with medical education (because they have the most complicated schedules).

[0]: https://reschedulemed.com

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

#25

Post by joshuapants »

davelnewton wrote: post #12
filipstachura wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The barrier to entry may be lower if you consider a user who has never used either software and is trying to make a decision. But if you have a user who has used Excel for the past 2 decades and is comfortable with it, low barrier to entry is still higher than just "go with what I know."

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

#26

Post by nekopa »

dragonwriter wrote: post #11
nekopa wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 permi…

I apologize. I tried to make it clear that I was giving my opinion, via my personal experience. I'm sorry if you somehow feel I was trying to redefine what you are actually talking about. I was not. I was just trying to engage in conversation with you about people and spreadsheets. And maybe your terms, from what you have seen (or maybe you are talking about some kind of official research into why people do what they do with spreadsheets) are more true than what I've seen, but honestly, in my 25+ years of working with various businesses, I've yet to come across someone who worked strangely with spreadsheets because of company restrictions. Again, and I cannot stress this enough, this is just from my single data point, my own personal view. Not trying to redefine what you're talking about, just saying my opinion.

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

#27

Post by collyw »

noxToken wrote: post #8
s_kilk wrote: post #2

In my experience working in some "speadsheet heavy" businesses: - complecting 'data' and 'presentation of data' together - lack of tools to help with 'correctness' - lack of version control - horrifying and error-prone programming model, both hard to write and hard to reason about. - spreadsheets full of pivots and charts rapidly become the 'truth' of a business, but without any checks and balances to ensure that wha…

> horrifying and error-prone programming model, both hard to write and hard to reason about. I don't remember where I read this, but I heard that the basic Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) is written with office workers in mind first. That is, Word isn't written for authors, Excel isn't written for database managers/big data specialists, and PowerPoint isn't written for motivational speakers. I think the idea o…

The problem is that they are too easy to use. As such Excel gets used for everything data related. Access would be a far better choice in many of the cases I have seen, but it just doesn't make any sense unless you have had some sort of introductory course on databases.

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

#28

Post by jaaames »

-Write locks/file ownership. Bob maintains the master schedule spreadsheet and no one else is allowed to touch it. Mary gets given access and leaves it open and goes to lunch and Bob can't update it for the rest of the afternoon.

-Multiple sources of the truth. I've seen spreadsheets used in lieu of professional estimating tools for pricing jobs, and been abused because I wasn't use the "latest version" of the spreadsheet that got cc'ed around at 11pm called estimate July 24 v11a LATEST.xlsx

-Fudge factors and spaghetti formulas. You can take a nearly complete data set and essentially manipulate it to tell any story with inconsistent formulas, hidden columns, references from other sheets etc.

-VBA extends capabilities but is has some serious performance issues, doesn't implement objects correctly, doesn't handle errors well, code can't be version controlled.

-Gets used to do a poor job of purpose built software that the business has licenses for, like estimating/scheduling/MRP because of a lack of training.

-Business logic usually isn't apparent or documented and has to be reverse engineered to be understood.

-Propagates silos within businesses as they decentralise data and tend to diverge.

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

#29

Post by martinwnet »

jaaames wrote: post #28

-Write locks/file ownership. Bob maintains the master schedule spreadsheet and no one else is allowed to touch it. Mary gets given access and leaves it open and goes to lunch and Bob can't update it for the rest of the afternoon. -Multiple sources of the truth. I've seen spreadsheets used in lieu of professional estimating tools for pricing jobs, and been abused because I wasn't use the "latest version" of the spread…

Does Google Sheets not solve a lot of these issues?

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

#30

Post by davelnewton »

joshuapants wrote: post #25
davelnewton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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.

The barrier to entry may be lower if you consider a user who has never used either software and is trying to make a decision. But if you have a user who has used Excel for the past 2 decades and is comfortable with it, low barrier to entry is still higher than just "go with what I know."

... Which is one of the reasons I listed for not using it, and unrelated to features.
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