10 ms·

> ...and, in fact, that's also what you'd get if you taught everyone how to program Python in high school instead of Excel. I disagree. Python leaves a readabl

by gbrown 9y ago

> ...and, in fact, that's also what you'd get if you taught everyone how to program Python in high school instead of Excel. I disagree. Python leaves a readable instruction set, while Excel buries the logic in an opaque two dimensional grid of cells (plus or minus atrocious VBA). I think this gives a better ladder for people to improve their skills to the point of not producing unmaintainable garbage.

kbenson 9y ago
> Python leaves a readable instruction set Not everyone structures programs in the same way, or puts functions in easily found locations, or names things usefully, or even approaches the problem in a way that makes sense to the majority of other people. For a concrete example, see this[1]. > Excel buries the logic in an opaque two dimensional grid of cells It would be trivial to represent excel grid formulas as a set of predefined functions, or a special data structure that you register functions in, and then it could be in textual form. It wouldn't make it any easier to reason about, but then again control flow isn't always easy to reason about when a program is split into many different objects and functions, until you've internalized a fair amount of the program. Spreadsheets give people a very limited, but structured output and a very limited, but easily reasoned about way or processing. It's different than "normal" programming, but that difference allows for very intuitive use. > I think this gives a better ladder for people to improve their skills to the point of not producing unmaintainable garbage. How much work has been put into making spreadsheets easier to share with other people? I'm not sure the same culture has existed for spreadsheets as for programming, where people have needed to share and reason about complex algorithms and data structures. If it had, I'm sure we'd have much more in the way of how to structure your excel well so it can easily be consumed by others, or yourself in the future (if it doesn't already exist, which it may). 1: http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Python-Charmer http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Python-Charmer
anigbrowl 9y ago
The grid of cells is your memory space. Coders like looking at a stack. Spreadsheet users like looking at the registers. Which you prefer depends to some extent on which end of the problem you're coming from; if you're starting out with a lot of domain knowledge, a spreadsheet is attractive because you can look at the data, see whether the way it's being stored/processed is basically correct by spot checking it, and then automate. I'll still often reach for a spreadsheet if I don't know off the top of my head what the rules or relationships are and I need the equivalent of a whiteboard with logic. If you have a top-down perspective and you want to automate a process whose fundamentals you know well, code is more comfortable. And you can go back and expand, modify, or adjust it later. But two things I don't like about code for handling large volumes of data are that I have to construct some sort of viewer to format the output (requiring more coding, or slower bug discovery if I press ahead without), and endless typing I like selecting things from menus and tool palettes because while I don't mind holding an instruction set in my head I don't like doing the same for every library I might want to use, especially remembering all the parameters. I hate hate hate writing glue code and want the computer to do that stuff for me. Fortunately a lot of these problems seem to be receding thanks to tools like Jupyter and some of the promising Flow-based programming tools that let you easily visualize structure, code, and visualization without getting bogged down in details. I should add that I prefer hacking to software engineering; that is, I'm only interested in programming as a means to an end of having a customizable tool for myself rather than building a product for other people, so I want spend as little of my time as possible on constructing the tool.
FabHK 9y ago
> Excel buries the logic in an opaque two dimensional grid of cells (plus or minus atrocious VBA) Yes, mixing the good old Excel dependency tree together with VBA macros creates truly dreadful and opaque spreadsheets.

by gbrown 9y ago

kbenson 9y ago

> Python leaves a readable instruction set Not everyone structures programs in the same way, or puts functions in easily found locations, or names things usefully, or even approaches the problem in a way that makes sense to the majority of other people. For a concrete example, see this[1]. > Excel buries the logic in an opaque two dimensional grid of cells It would be trivial to represent excel grid formulas as a set of predefined functions, or a special data structure that you register functions in, and then it could be in textual form. It wouldn't make it any easier to reason about, but then again control flow isn't always easy to reason about when a program is split into many different objects and functions, until you've internalized a fair amount of the program. Spreadsheets give people a very limited, but structured output and a very limited, but easily reasoned about way or processing. It's different than "normal" programming, but that difference allows for very intuitive use. > I think this gives a better ladder for people to improve their skills to the point of not producing unmaintainable garbage. How much work has been put into making spreadsheets easier to share with other people? I'm not sure the same culture has existed for spreadsheets as for programming, where people have needed to share and reason about complex algorithms and data structures. If it had, I'm sure we'd have much more in the way of how to structure your excel well so it can easily be consumed by others, or yourself in the future (if it doesn't already exist, which it may). 1: http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Python-Charmer http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Python-Charmer

anigbrowl 9y ago

The grid of cells is your memory space. Coders like looking at a stack. Spreadsheet users like looking at the registers. Which you prefer depends to some extent on which end of the problem you're coming from; if you're starting out with a lot of domain knowledge, a spreadsheet is attractive because you can look at the data, see whether the way it's being stored/processed is basically correct by spot checking it, and then automate. I'll still often reach for a spreadsheet if I don't know off the top of my head what the rules or relationships are and I need the equivalent of a whiteboard with logic. If you have a top-down perspective and you want to automate a process whose fundamentals you know well, code is more comfortable. And you can go back and expand, modify, or adjust it later. But two things I don't like about code for handling large volumes of data are that I have to construct some sort of viewer to format the output (requiring more coding, or slower bug discovery if I press ahead without), and endless typing I like selecting things from menus and tool palettes because while I don't mind holding an instruction set in my head I don't like doing the same for every library I might want to use, especially remembering all the parameters. I hate hate hate writing glue code and want the computer to do that stuff for me. Fortunately a lot of these problems seem to be receding thanks to tools like Jupyter and some of the promising Flow-based programming tools that let you easily visualize structure, code, and visualization without getting bogged down in details. I should add that I prefer hacking to software engineering; that is, I'm only interested in programming as a means to an end of having a customizable tool for myself rather than building a product for other people, so I want spend as little of my time as possible on constructing the tool.

FabHK 9y ago

> Excel buries the logic in an opaque two dimensional grid of cells (plus or minus atrocious VBA) Yes, mixing the good old Excel dependency tree together with VBA macros creates truly dreadful and opaque spreadsheets.