alt Hacker NewsOver the years, I've seen many comments dismissing Excel. But as many people who've worked in enterprises know, Excel is a godsend for manipulating reams of data for non-programmers who can think analytically. Of course, complex formulae and extensive VBA functions become a tech debt over time. But implemented properly, it provides a solution which doesn't require huge management approvals and increases productivity.
I'm sure that these new features will find a lot of use amongst many people. And seeing these Excel innovations is heartening.
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I work at an airline where Claude is replacing data analysis tools like excel, data visualization tools like power bi, all that's left is dynatrace because it does it all automatically like Claude does. Many bespoke data processing or data analysis tools for non programmers are being replaced by Claude suscriptions, like excel, power bi, spss, tableau, those are the most used I think. No Python data analysis nor big data tools like pandas, numpy, apache superset are being replaced though
So, Excel is just the poor man's shadow IT? I like that picture.
The other aspects is the new generation doesn't understand it. During interviews in marketing but also for a medical field expert, I often ask "make a small budget so you'll see how your bonus will work", and even the PhD, which is the top academic level, couldn't use a basic formula. How do they deal with data during a PhD? "In Prism", she said.
Same for marketing students and, although it's a lower academic level, they still need Excel for prospect lists.
I mean spreadsheets are amazing, but excel is still a shitty piece of software (in my books)
Even as a programmer I find Excel pretty useful for anything involving numbers. The fact that everything is reactive allows for very fast iteration when testing stuff.
I wouldn't necessarily want to maintain a really complicated spreadsheet but I stop using spreadsheets once it gets anywhere near "complicated". It's still valuable for what I use for.