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> we need to make a better toolkit for data-driven decisions Why? Excel is ubiquitous, powerful, and accessible. It only really falls apart for huge data sets

by ng12 9y ago

> we need to make a better toolkit for data-driven decisions Why? Excel is ubiquitous, powerful, and accessible. It only really falls apart for huge data sets -- at which point you build a cluster and feed the output back into Excel anyway. I'll never understand why software engineers feel like everybody else is a caveman banging rocks together. Excel replacements are a hard sell because, by and large, they're not needed.

twic 9y ago
Excel sheets aren't very maintainable. You get a big grid, plus named ranges. There aren't good tools for generalisation or abstraction, so big sheets have all the usual problems of bad software: hard to understand, hard to change, full of inconsistencies, etc. There are also no good options for source control, modular reuse, etc. I work on a desk which has a lot of vital calculations in Excel spreadsheets. They work, and we make money, but it takes a lot of human effort (expensive trader effort!) to keep them working properly. If we want to scale up - more people, more products, etc - we need to move more and more of those calculations into software. Improvements to or replacements for the spreadsheet as tools for non-programmers would certainly be helpful. But better tools and techniques for programmers to port functionality from spreadsheets to 'real' software would also be helpful.
- roenxi 9y ago
  Excel spreadsheets aren't maintainable, but in context there are some subtleties. If the process is upgraded to a full-blown piece of 'real' software, now you need a full-blown software dev to maintain it. A better result from more resources isn't a clean improvement, it is just a change. Straddling the line between 'technically best outcome' and 'cheapest workable outcome' is what businesses strive to do. In most mature businesses change should be approached extremely cautiously; everybody loves changing things and the costs are frequently big.
  - vorotato 9y ago
    If your risk is less than it costs to build the software then that's totally acceptable, but what is unacceptable is billion dollar businesses using spreadsheets to manage critical business operations.
noitsnot 9y ago
Two opposite ends of the spectrum. The engineer who has to constantly keep up on the latest technology, then there are people who use excel, which is a program from the beginning of time/Windows.
vorotato 9y ago
Probably because studies show that people who use excel to manage finance end up coming up with different numbers. JP Morgan lost 6 billion because of excel, and these are preventable problems. It's because you aren't codifying your process, you're just memorizing it and trusting that your memory won't change. Trusting that you won't miss a step. The moment you start doing serious calculations on your data you would be better writing some form of software which can actually handle the amount of complexity that you have in your job. Excel is opaque, hard to manage, easy to diverge. The agency I'm at have made a tremendous reduction in errors by migrating away from excel. Sure it's more work nailing down every process, but they are actually nailed down and you can see them and evaluate whether they are actually correct. You won't have multiple competing standards within a business because we can share our processes. If you think excel is enough you're either doing very simple or low risk job, or much more likely you are floating a lot of totally unnecessary and expensive risk. In finance CENTS matter.

by ng12 9y ago

twic 9y ago

Excel sheets aren't very maintainable. You get a big grid, plus named ranges. There aren't good tools for generalisation or abstraction, so big sheets have all the usual problems of bad software: hard to understand, hard to change, full of inconsistencies, etc. There are also no good options for source control, modular reuse, etc. I work on a desk which has a lot of vital calculations in Excel spreadsheets. They work, and we make money, but it takes a lot of human effort (expensive trader effort!) to keep them working properly. If we want to scale up - more people, more products, etc - we need to move more and more of those calculations into software. Improvements to or replacements for the spreadsheet as tools for non-programmers would certainly be helpful. But better tools and techniques for programmers to port functionality from spreadsheets to 'real' software would also be helpful.

roenxi 9y ago
Excel spreadsheets aren't maintainable, but in context there are some subtleties. If the process is upgraded to a full-blown piece of 'real' software, now you need a full-blown software dev to maintain it. A better result from more resources isn't a clean improvement, it is just a change. Straddling the line between 'technically best outcome' and 'cheapest workable outcome' is what businesses strive to do. In most mature businesses change should be approached extremely cautiously; everybody loves changing things and the costs are frequently big.
- vorotato 9y ago
  If your risk is less than it costs to build the software then that's totally acceptable, but what is unacceptable is billion dollar businesses using spreadsheets to manage critical business operations.

noitsnot 9y ago

Two opposite ends of the spectrum. The engineer who has to constantly keep up on the latest technology, then there are people who use excel, which is a program from the beginning of time/Windows.

vorotato 9y ago

Probably because studies show that people who use excel to manage finance end up coming up with different numbers. JP Morgan lost 6 billion because of excel, and these are preventable problems. It's because you aren't codifying your process, you're just memorizing it and trusting that your memory won't change. Trusting that you won't miss a step. The moment you start doing serious calculations on your data you would be better writing some form of software which can actually handle the amount of complexity that you have in your job. Excel is opaque, hard to manage, easy to diverge. The agency I'm at have made a tremendous reduction in errors by migrating away from excel. Sure it's more work nailing down every process, but they are actually nailed down and you can see them and evaluate whether they are actually correct. You won't have multiple competing standards within a business because we can share our processes. If you think excel is enough you're either doing very simple or low risk job, or much more likely you are floating a lot of totally unnecessary and expensive risk. In finance CENTS matter.