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"This article seems to be a bunch of random claims with no evidence." I was part of a startup that was essentially trying to replace excel for a specific marke

"This article seems to be a bunch of random claims with no evidence." I was part of a startup that was essentially trying to replace excel for a specific market and we made a very similar list (with sources). Sadly I don't have access to it anymore... Anecdotally, from what I hear from friends who work in the industry, many banks have a rather error-prone practice of emailing excel sheets to each other resulting in version mismatches, versions getting lost, latency etc. Here are a few reports for you to look at: http://www.businessinsider.com/excel-partly-to-blame-for-trading-loss-2013-2?utm_source=scoopinion&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/excel-partly-to-blame-for-tra... http://www.cio.com/article/2438188/enterprise-software/eight-of-the-worst-spreadsheet-blunders.html http://www.cio.com/article/2438188/enterprise-software/eight... http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/10/16/spreadsheet-mistake-costs-tibco-shareholders-100-million/ http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/10/16/spreadsheet-mistak... But I guess the question you are asking isn't "is excel error prone", but rather, "are the alternatives less error prone", and while I don't have any supporting evidence, I would think that when using a "real" programming language, you would have version control, unit tests and so on.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> I would think that when using a "real" programming language, you would have version control, unit tests and so on. You would if and only if you employed professional programmers at those tasks, which with Excel (apparently) could be done with less/differently trained people. Version control and unit tests are not features of environment, but of professional training and discipline.
- dkersten 10y ago
  True, although availability of tools and ease of use does encourage certain practices. You "could" do these things with Excel, but it doesn't encourage it at all. But you're right, without professional training and discipline even if the tools exist, they're not used...
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I agree. My point being, when thinking about viable Excel replacement, one also needs to consider if and how the skillset differs to get the most of the benefits of the new tool. A company may not be willing to switch if the alternative solution requires extended specialized training for the staff.
    - dkersten 10y ago
      Yes, indeed, you are correct.
ellius 10y ago
I work for a bank, and literally almost everyone I work with does this. By comparison, I use R for pretty much everything (minus some formatting in Excel). I have a far easier time identifying errors because than my coworkers, because instead of getting version 328 of Book 1.xlsx with no information about structure, edge cases, etc., I have well-documented code explaining exactly what came in, how I transformed and analyzed it, and exactly what went out. I will say the one downside to this practice is that I get stuck editing a bunch of connector code because no one can send the same information in the same format twice.
ellius 10y ago
I work for a bank, and literally almost everyone I work with does this. By comparison, I use R for pretty much everything (minus some formatting in Excel). I have a far easier time identifying errors because than my coworkers, because instead of getting version 328 of Book 1.xlsx with no information about structure, edge cases, etc., I have well-documented code explaining exactly what came in, how I transformed and analyzed it, and exactly what went out. I will say the one downside to this practice is that I get stuck editing a bunch of connector code because no one can send the same information in the same format twice.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> I would think that when using a "real" programming language, you would have version control, unit tests and so on. You would if and only if you employed professional programmers at those tasks, which with Excel (apparently) could be done with less/differently trained people. Version control and unit tests are not features of environment, but of professional training and discipline.

dkersten 10y ago
True, although availability of tools and ease of use does encourage certain practices. You "could" do these things with Excel, but it doesn't encourage it at all. But you're right, without professional training and discipline even if the tools exist, they're not used...
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I agree. My point being, when thinking about viable Excel replacement, one also needs to consider if and how the skillset differs to get the most of the benefits of the new tool. A company may not be willing to switch if the alternative solution requires extended specialized training for the staff.
  - dkersten 10y ago
    Yes, indeed, you are correct.

ellius 10y ago

I work for a bank, and literally almost everyone I work with does this. By comparison, I use R for pretty much everything (minus some formatting in Excel). I have a far easier time identifying errors because than my coworkers, because instead of getting version 328 of Book 1.xlsx with no information about structure, edge cases, etc., I have well-documented code explaining exactly what came in, how I transformed and analyzed it, and exactly what went out. I will say the one downside to this practice is that I get stuck editing a bunch of connector code because no one can send the same information in the same format twice.

ellius 10y ago