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> Having used Excel for many years on the trading floor, I have to say it's awful. But the interface is not awful - it's absolutely wonderful as a quick way to
by bachmeier 8y ago
> Having used Excel for many years on the trading floor, I have to say it's awful.
But the interface is not awful - it's absolutely wonderful as a quick way to enter and share data and do a fast analysis. The part that's awful is when you do more than that. And once you've got the data into Excel, why go through the trouble of changing to something else just to do one additional thing, even if that additional thing is complex?
- lordnacho 8y agoAs technological scrap paper, I admit it can be useful. But as soon as your "fast analysis" is done, you need to be hardening whatever process it is you are creating. After all, that is what your analysis is about, right? Building some sort of repeatable, often auditable, transparent process.
- bachmeier 8y agoI'm certainly not arguing in favor of Excel. I only open spreadsheets when I have no other choice, but I understand why others use them.
- intended 8y agoBut that’s a great job done. You’ve described both - the ethos of hacker news from back in the day, and the point of excel with that original sentence. Just Get stuff done. Your boss will worry about an auditable process after the prototype shows merit. Nothing in the world is feee/without trade offs. Any excel like program will have excel like problems. The alternative being a world fragmented between different spreadsheet programs and no interop.