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Excel allows you to do interactive analysis though, which SQL simply comes no where near close. For example, after creating an Excel table, you add a filter, se

Excel allows you to do interactive analysis though, which SQL simply comes no where near close. For example, after creating an Excel table, you add a filter, see the changed data. You can Ctrl-Z for undo. Add another filter and see changed data instantaneously, undo/redo, sort on many columns, create derived columns and sort on those, and all of this interactively. Also, excel supports far more mathematical functions.

Nullabillity 7y ago
> For example, after creating an Excel table, you add a filter, see the changed data. Add a WHERE. > You can Ctrl-Z for undo. Drop the WHERE. Hell, ctrl+z will work fine here too! > sort on many columns ORDER BY supports multiple columns too. > create derived columns and sort on those You can have arbitrary expressions in your SELECT clause. > and all of this interactively. Destructively*. And SQL makes it clear exactly what you've done to the source data in order to get there. > Also, excel supports far more mathematical functions. Surely that's what extensions are for!
- ALittleLight 7y ago
  Earlier today I was looking at data from two different sources about the same thing. I wanted to see how similar the reports were. I grepped my logs, got columns of data, copied and pasted into Excel, created a line chart, copied and pasted the line chart into an email to a colleague. How would SQL let me do the same thing? With Excel this was probably less than a minute end to end. Would SQL be as fast? Keeping in mind that I wouldn't have a database for any of the data I was looking at.
  - hoistbypetard 7y ago
    Concur. For whacking out a quick analysis like that, it's hard to beat a spreadsheet. (I do like Excel, but no longer think it's all that far ahead of LibreOffice for most things I tend to use it for.) It's also good for creating what amounts to a quick interactive form. But I've lost count of how many times I've run across a spreadsheet being misused as a shitty, ad-hoc database where it'd be less work (and less error-prone) to just use sqlite (or even postgres, honestly), so I have some empathy for GP's perspective.
- rabidrat 7y ago
  In SQL, how can I search all columns which contain some text?
  - Nullabillity 7y ago
    If you don't have any meaningful column structure then you won't be able to do any useful analysis anyway.
nwallin 7y ago
No offense, but you sounds like someone who doesn't 'get' SQL. I'm reasonable at Excel. I've been using it in anger for close to 20 years. My most serious dressing down I've every received at work was related to a column of incorrect data in Excel. (I built a spreadsheet based on incorrect data. Management expected me to build correct spreadsheets from incorrect data.) I'm reasonable at SQL. I've been using it casually for 10 years. My cutoff at this point is that I'll use Excel if I expect my analysis to take less than five minutes. I'll use pandas or SQL for anything more complicated than that, because it's that much more powerful. Excel stops scaling at about a million rows. SQL stops scaling when your indices no longer fit in RAM.
- enitihas 7y ago
  I have written a lot of SQL over the years, and consider myself to be reasonably well versed with SQL and relational databases. SQL doesn't allow you to act on your data while seeing it. The interaction modes are totally different. In SQL: Type query -> See some results -> Repeat Excel: Everything in front of your eyes. You are manipulating live data. That is not something you do in SQL. (SQL doesn't mean much though, as it is a standard and not a tool. Maybe you had some specific SQL based tooling in mind) > Excel stops scaling at about a million rows. A large amount of real world data has less than a million rows. Every tool will stop at some point. At that point the benefits of Excel fade away, even if it could handle the data, as 1M rows are too large for our brain to make a sense of live. >My cutoff at this point is that I'll use Excel if I expect my analysis to take less than five minutes A lot of real world analysis takes 5 minutes. Of course, Excel is not perfect, and I too will never use Excel for anything that has to be done repeatedly (pandas or similar solutions are perfect here), but for quick and dirty data exploration, Excel is very good.
- liamwestray 7y ago
  Excel is hands down the best financial analysis and modeling tool ever made. SQL is not really comparable here. Any attempt to use it as a database or for data analysis should be met with extreme caution. As soon as someone suggests a VB macro for anything they should be shot. Excel is not the right tool for those kids of jobs. Python and R have just destroyed excel for data analysis and statistics (and most visualizations now) and are free. You can’t go back once getting used to that flexibility. Jupyter Notebooks reproducibility and traceability put the nail in the coffin for excel as a data analysis tool.

Nullabillity 7y ago

> For example, after creating an Excel table, you add a filter, see the changed data. Add a WHERE. > You can Ctrl-Z for undo. Drop the WHERE. Hell, ctrl+z will work fine here too! > sort on many columns ORDER BY supports multiple columns too. > create derived columns and sort on those You can have arbitrary expressions in your SELECT clause. > and all of this interactively. Destructively*. And SQL makes it clear exactly what you've done to the source data in order to get there. > Also, excel supports far more mathematical functions. Surely that's what extensions are for!

ALittleLight 7y ago
Earlier today I was looking at data from two different sources about the same thing. I wanted to see how similar the reports were. I grepped my logs, got columns of data, copied and pasted into Excel, created a line chart, copied and pasted the line chart into an email to a colleague. How would SQL let me do the same thing? With Excel this was probably less than a minute end to end. Would SQL be as fast? Keeping in mind that I wouldn't have a database for any of the data I was looking at.
- hoistbypetard 7y ago
  Concur. For whacking out a quick analysis like that, it's hard to beat a spreadsheet. (I do like Excel, but no longer think it's all that far ahead of LibreOffice for most things I tend to use it for.) It's also good for creating what amounts to a quick interactive form. But I've lost count of how many times I've run across a spreadsheet being misused as a shitty, ad-hoc database where it'd be less work (and less error-prone) to just use sqlite (or even postgres, honestly), so I have some empathy for GP's perspective.
rabidrat 7y ago
In SQL, how can I search all columns which contain some text?
- Nullabillity 7y ago
  If you don't have any meaningful column structure then you won't be able to do any useful analysis anyway.

nwallin 7y ago

No offense, but you sounds like someone who doesn't 'get' SQL. I'm reasonable at Excel. I've been using it in anger for close to 20 years. My most serious dressing down I've every received at work was related to a column of incorrect data in Excel. (I built a spreadsheet based on incorrect data. Management expected me to build correct spreadsheets from incorrect data.) I'm reasonable at SQL. I've been using it casually for 10 years. My cutoff at this point is that I'll use Excel if I expect my analysis to take less than five minutes. I'll use pandas or SQL for anything more complicated than that, because it's that much more powerful. Excel stops scaling at about a million rows. SQL stops scaling when your indices no longer fit in RAM.

enitihas 7y ago
I have written a lot of SQL over the years, and consider myself to be reasonably well versed with SQL and relational databases. SQL doesn't allow you to act on your data while seeing it. The interaction modes are totally different. In SQL: Type query -> See some results -> Repeat Excel: Everything in front of your eyes. You are manipulating live data. That is not something you do in SQL. (SQL doesn't mean much though, as it is a standard and not a tool. Maybe you had some specific SQL based tooling in mind) > Excel stops scaling at about a million rows. A large amount of real world data has less than a million rows. Every tool will stop at some point. At that point the benefits of Excel fade away, even if it could handle the data, as 1M rows are too large for our brain to make a sense of live. >My cutoff at this point is that I'll use Excel if I expect my analysis to take less than five minutes A lot of real world analysis takes 5 minutes. Of course, Excel is not perfect, and I too will never use Excel for anything that has to be done repeatedly (pandas or similar solutions are perfect here), but for quick and dirty data exploration, Excel is very good.
liamwestray 7y ago
Excel is hands down the best financial analysis and modeling tool ever made. SQL is not really comparable here. Any attempt to use it as a database or for data analysis should be met with extreme caution. As soon as someone suggests a VB macro for anything they should be shot. Excel is not the right tool for those kids of jobs. Python and R have just destroyed excel for data analysis and statistics (and most visualizations now) and are free. You can’t go back once getting used to that flexibility. Jupyter Notebooks reproducibility and traceability put the nail in the coffin for excel as a data analysis tool.