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'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

theguardian.com

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Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

#371

Post by vlovich123 »

financetechbro wrote: post #74
vlovich123 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GSheets is the good enough factor and the collaborative features were baked in from the start. I feel like MS struggles a bit in that respect. Look at the instructions for collaborating in Excel: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/collaborate-on-ex...

I’ve had the pleasure of investing many hours across excel and gsheets. I’m currently at an org that uses MS suite and excel collaboration across OneDrive & Sharepoint is almost seamless now as long as long as you’re on the cloud

But is the cloud version of Excel feature parity with the desktop for the pro users that claim that Google sheets isn't good enough? If the cloud version of Google sheets is the same as the cloud version of Excel, then that's not the same thing at all.

Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

#372

Post by ysagal »

somat wrote: post #179

I grew out of it. I started to really loath the spreadsheet data model. "it's a big bag of cells" was not really doing anything for me. I started wanting better data structures and programing environments to work on that data. For the data storage and basic calculations on that stored data role, I mainly use a relational database, most of what I wanted in a spreadsheet was row level security, that is, for my rows to…

Have you tried getgrist.com? It's a relational database that looks like a spreadsheet and has granular row level security. And also the language of formulas is Python.

Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

#373

Post by Karellen »

tomnipotent wrote: post #368
Karellen wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

OK, I can see I've been talking somewhat at cross-purposes to some other people in the thread. When the G*P commenter said:

> The killer feature of Excel for financial modelling, over 'proper' software, databases etc is portability and auditability.

...comparing Excel to "'proper' software", extolling Excel's "portability and auditability", I read that as highlighting Excel spreadsheets' ability to be audited as software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_audit

i.e. the ability to inspect the "code" of a spreadsheet, to ensure it does what the authors think it does/want it to do, and that it conforms to any informal/internal guidelines of the organisation using it - the sort that "'proper' software" is subject to.

That seemed to me to be the meaning intended by the original comment in the thread?

Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

#374

Post by bulubulu »

jimnotgym wrote: post #114

I like the programmers on here telling the professional users that Excel is overblown and they could just use Numbers, OpenOffice or Google sheets. Imagine an accountant coming on here and telling you that you don't need vi, emacs, sublime text or VSCode. You certainly don't need your IDEs. After all it's perfectly possible to code in Notepad. You also don't need your languages. BASIC was perfectly good. The killer f…

10 years ago I joined a consulting company as a data science intern. I arrived at work with my MacBook. I learned about excel in courses but had never used in my daily life: I use csv and SQLite for "data-heavy" cases and Numbers for intuitive cases (never coded inside it). When someone shares an excel sheet with me, I open with Numbers with no problem.

On day 1 I realized my work was to deal with several excel sheets of 10~50MB, with huge amount of VBA scripts, rule-based highlighting, charts... They even wrote an internally used extension for those files. Numbers could not handle and crashed.

I need Excel. I asked if I could borrow a PC laptop from the company, no, that's not for interns. I need to bring my own device. I asked if they would pay for Microsoft Office to get installed on my personal MacBook. The answer was obvious, what are you thinking? I had to manage to get Excel for myself, while the full salary they paid me was not enough to cover a license.

I left consulting after that experience and end up working as a "real" data scientist. Nothing like that happened ever. I collaborate with colleagues using different IDEs/editors everyday. If an accountant joins us and tells me notepad is all you need, I would highly respect his choice and continue with my editor. We don't need to argue, our codebase is not locked in any tools.

Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

#375

Post by tomnipotent »

Karellen wrote: post #373
tomnipotent wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

OK, I can see I've been talking somewhat at cross-purposes to some other people in the thread. When the G*P commenter said: > The killer feature of Excel for financial modelling, over 'proper' software, databases etc is portability and auditability. ...comparing Excel to "'proper' software", extolling Excel's "portability and auditability", I read that as highlighting Excel spreadsheets' ability to be audited as soft…

The kind of professionals doing audit's against Excel spreadsheets are not auditing the "code", they're auditing the methodology used to produce the results being audited.

I've also been through several code audits, and other than sharing the "word" audit they're not the same thing. Audit in this context is the ability to follow how some numbers were derived, and to check how the work was done. It's so that the 3rd party that hired them can confirm the numbers a 1st party are showing are what they say they are (and if not, are they close enough).

Accountants are confirming things comply with GAAP or IFRS, and pointing things out when they don't and asking for clarification. They'll be checking that liabilities were properly structured, and reflected in how profit was derived. They'll be reviewing deferred revenue schedules to make sure next year's pre-paid subscription revenue isn't recognized in Q4.

A financial auditor is going to be looking at the assumptions of the forecast, and working backwards to confirm the methodology. They'll confirm that Q4 2026 projections used the prior years average multiplied by quarterly constant. Or they'll find a results from an ARIMA/Prophet model with notes to "see X". Maybe they'll catch an Excel formula error or 2, but they'll unlikely mean much compared to what else could be wrong.

Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

#376

Post by financetechbro »

vlovich123 wrote: post #371
financetechbro wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had the pleasure of investing many hours across excel and gsheets. I’m currently at an org that uses MS suite and excel collaboration across OneDrive & Sharepoint is almost seamless now as long as long as you’re on the cloud

But is the cloud version of Excel feature parity with the desktop for the pro users that claim that Google sheets isn't good enough? If the cloud version of Google sheets is the same as the cloud version of Excel, then that's not the same thing at all.

Yes as long as you are running your spreadsheet on the desktop version. You can open them up on the browser version too which is total trash but you’ve got full functionality of your cloud spreadsheets while on the desktop app

Re: 'I grew up with it': readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

#377

Post by wruza »

listenallyall wrote: post #366
wruza wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

My success rate was around 2/3. That after I finished they returned to excel is your unfounded assumption (also demonstratively ignorant of what it takes).

Anyway, if you advise your clients to build on excel, I wish them luck, and wish you, when they fail to grow or simply sustain, to be successful in explaining them that it’s alright and integrators bad and they must just continue. Cause clearly this strategy works for you somehow. Make it work for them with the same energy as here and it’s done.

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