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> the business people can at least modify the Excel I'm not convinced that's a good thing. If they can change the Excel then they can also fuck up the system,
by Sean1708 9y ago
> the business people can at least modify the Excel
I'm not convinced that's a good thing. If they can change the Excel then they can also fuck up the system, and if you fuck up a system like this then it's horrendously difficult to unfuck. I think systems like this look great when they're working, but the second they go tits up you realise why people are horrified by them.
- jpindar 9y agoEspecially since the people who do this generally don't use version control.
- accatyyc 9y agoThey do use version control. They put each version in a folder named after the date
- njharman 9y agoUsers able to modify cod is the opensource model. It doesn't lose its benefits and advantages just because the users are not us(professional devs)
- leoedin 9y agoIt's not so much being able to view or modify code that's the problem, but the fact that any modifications to an excel spreadsheet are inherently running in production. Open source has many benefits, but while open source projects may accept pull requests there is very few which put contributions straight into the latest build without review.
- forapurpose 9y agoThat's not a realistic comparison. I have yet to see one user try to modify Firefox's code. Spreadsheets, on the other hand ...
- taeric 9y agoYou are still making a distinction between user and developer. I think the point is that we can all be both.
- Sean1708 9y agoThat's not the issue at all. The issue is that these systems invariably have no review process, no testing, and no versioning (at best they'll have each spreadsheet versioned with no real way to know what each version contains). And this makes them incredibly fragile.