Yea, people grow up with rashes on their butts too, stop glorifying this steaming pile of s/w doo doo...
'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
361–370 of 377 posts
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excel also has that program synthesis algorithm to fill cells following a pattern. I haven't seen it anywhere else.
I believe Numbers has what's you're talking about [1]: [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/numbers/autofill-cells-tan0e...
No, that sounds like conventional autofill.
In Excel the function is called Flash Fill.
If you haven't before, try Flash Fill. It seemed like black magic back when LLMs were not a thing.
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wrote a VB macro that displays the formula for a cell, next to the cell. Granted you have to add a cell (typically a column) to make space for it. It returns either a formula, or "constant" if the cell doesn't contain a formula. I could make it more sophisticated, but just those two things are enough to make spreadsheets a lot easier for me to follow. Following spreadsheets is like trying to find something in my ga…
Control-backtick toggles formulas. No need for VB(A).
Ah, I didn't know that. So I tried it.
It does display formulas, but by hiding the values. What my macro does is allow the formula to be displayed permanently in its own column.
Granted I'm one user out of many, and have switched to programming for any kind of quantitative work. but I'm still quite supportive of Excel.
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our PIM team disagrees with that take. They enjoy the PIM interface and Excel doesn't come close to the data hierarchy and relationships our systems provide. And that includes reporting, vendor exchange and internal integrations. But perhaps you're missing the point here (like plenty of others): it is not about handling a few offline rows, it's about re-inventing established systems that have proven their value and r…
Sure, agreeing would be a fireable offence "And anyone who wants to build a system where it is, is not working for us." But the non-PIM teams agree, and they are a few orders of magnitude bigger and more important.
No, they don't. Our finance teams, accounting, B&S, purchasing etc. also all disagree with your take.
There also is no "fireable offence" structure here, we aren't a US-company and we have strong labour protections here. They themselves chose how they want their processes to work, and none of them ended up with Excel in the main process loop, anywhere.
Perhaps this is something you cannot imagine, but over here, this has been the standard for years. And it pays dividends.
This does not mean excel doesn't exist or isn't used outside of the main processes/loops/flows. But that is what I wrote in my first comment here, which people seem to skip over.
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spreadsheets let you click any field and understand where it came from. Excel can be thought of as an amazing post-execution debugger where you can get a previous output and value for almost any piece of memory ("cell"). I would love a debugger that could do this post-execution for some output.
Not quite the same thing but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_debugging comes close.
It's not even in the same ballpark. With excel, you are inspecting _the output_ for a specific run. There is no equivalent in modern programming.
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
a) because you yourself wrote "sometimes we just failed" and "I don't think it's fixable", and b) because in many years of corporate experience, the vast majority of systems built with the intention of replacing Excel processes fail to achieve that goal. It is true that knowledge workers are often disorganized and messy - in large part, because actual business is also messy and changes very quickly. When you start wi…
I am not respectful of excel at all, true. I could see your perspective, if it wasn’t a client who comes by itself(!) begging to do something with their spreadsheets cause key roles spend all day maintaining these, blocking further growth or mergers. Maybe I should not have called it crap out if respect to a client, but that’s what it was from the design pov, no reason to spare a word. I didn’t like it cause no one l…
You're saying Excel failed, when the work was mostly getting done, if inefficiently.
You showed up, unburdened by Excel, and soon quit ("bailed out" -- your words) because the projects were "crappy", "not interesting", "no one wanted to deal with". Yea, boring, crappy projects are a big, but essential part of business!
Lets be clear, YOU failed. Processes built upon Excel are often messy and inefficient, that's well-established, but just like in this example, attempting to replicate the processes without using Excel often implodes entirely.
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
Control-backtick toggles formulas. No need for VB(A).
Ah, I didn't know that. So I tried it. It does display formulas, but by hiding the values. What my macro does is allow the formula to be displayed permanently in its own column. Granted I'm one user out of many, and have switched to programming for any kind of quantitative work. but I'm still quite supportive of Excel.
Do you realize it toggles data and formula display?
That ought to be fine for anyone with more short term memory than a gnat.
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Specifically, I posit that it is harder to check a spreadsheet, than it is to check a "traditional" program in a normal programming language, which works on pure data. I don't think I can agree with this. The average codebase I see is pretty terrible readability-wise. Nasty levels of function nesting, tons of variation of behavior based on arguments passed into functions, etc. I assume the average Excel spreadsheet…
My main problems with checking spreadsheet code are: 1) Code formatting - spreadsheet formulae are generally presented all on one line with minimal spacing and no syntax highlighting. Any mildly complex formula should ideally be presented a) across multiple lines, b) with indenting to show function nesting depth, and c) in colour. 2) Copy and paste - spreadsheet formulae are generally copy-and-pasted every time they'…
I've been involved in at least a dozen audits during Series B/C fundraising periods, the bulk of which included financial models with forward-looking quarterly forecasts backed up with prior-quarter actual results.
Accounting audit usually involves accountants/CFO going through how the accounting system accounts are structured, and how those accounts get turned into the three financial statements (cash flow, income statement, balance sheet). You might have a unique accounting scenario where large expenses can be amortized over several periods, and an auditor will check how that reporting schedule was produced to net out what everyone is looking at on the financial statements. Maybe there was an acquisition that didn't quite pan out and there's an impairment charge that had material differences. Maybe your business collects cash upfront but reports deferred revenue. Maybe your company offers a product warranty so there's a non-trivial accrual schedule to consolidate warranty liability.
I worked at a company that convinced the SEC that it generated revenues from its published content over a 5-year period, allowing it to amortize expenses over that revenue-generating period while front-loading revenues over the first 18 months. Eventually the SEC changed the rules and expenses were expected to be reported in proportion to revenues.
There's a lot of ways those numbers can be put together, with a lot of different rules for how cash, revenue, and loss can be represented and disclosed. The kinds of errors I've seen encountered are less Excel formula errors, and more fundamental issues with account structures and how numbers are being strung together to reach what is reported.
The impression I've received is that what matters during the audit process is not if there are mistakes and errors, but if they lead to material changes that alter the trajectory of any decisions being made.
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#369Fun facts, when Excel was launched by both Steve Jobs of Apple and Bill Gates of Microsoft back in 1985 at Tavern on the Green, New York, Excel has 16,384 rows and 256 columns, and now original Excel's rows now exactly matched the Excel's current columns of 16,384 (2^14).
Another fun facts, on average people spent 10% of their working life using Excel.
Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it is not perfect. Nothing is. I find explaining a few good computing practices coupled with a tour of the many fine OSS tools available literally for the asking, does real good for anyone willing to invest a bit of their time. MS Office itself can corrupt its own documents. Ask many of us how we know, right? Now that is more rare than it is for the OSS tools, but it does happen. You are not wrong. I am not sur…
>The most important aspects of all this boil down to people being able to do stuff other people would prefer they not do. Can you elaborate please? I don't get your point.
Yeah, I was moving fast on mobile and really could have done more.
People able to do stuff -->(other people would prefer they not do.)
Hacking of all kinds -->(software, hardware, processes, nature, the OSS mindset brings with it some perception of what could be done as well as might need to be done.)
Reverse Engineer Software -->(OSS tools often have options and workflows unavailable or that are very expensive.)
Archive -->(Some arcade games running as live distributions comes to mind)
Run Software on device or in environment not authorized (piracy, run in virtual machine, on OS not intended by developer.)
Build software -->(that may be sanctioned, illegal, or otherwise controlled.)
Repurpose hardware -->(turn router into media server, restore lost features, make hardware do extras...)
Repair -->(using the software freedoms often means repair is possible even when it is not intended to be)
Write illegal software -->(It remains possible to drop code on the net anonymously.)
Encryption-->(either novel methods or those deemed a hazard.)
That's a pretty solid list of things people may be inclined to do that other people would prefer they not do.