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I have never met an application that's as easy to maintain as a spreadsheet is. It's the only thing that feels like you're actually editing what you want and no

I have never met an application that's as easy to maintain as a spreadsheet is. It's the only thing that feels like you're actually editing what you want and not being hand cuffed by some constraint. It's the very definition of WYSIWYG. There's a reason that the shared calendar of choice for my wife and I is a Google Sheet and not Google Calendar.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
If there was only decent version control so you could go back quickly if something goes wrong.
- alexhutcheson 7y ago
  Google Sheets has this: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/190843 https://support.google.com/docs/answer/190843
- ThisIsTheWay 7y ago
  Excel's version control is decent if you use it properly. It's easy to track changes over time, view check in notes that describe what was updated (as long as the user enters them...), and reverting to prior versions is really easy.
londons_explore 7y ago
Sheets are great for single-user systems. As soon as multiple people try to use/modify the sheet, you end up with "Bob added a handy equation to track X, but Fred just wants to change Y but that breaks Bobs equation". Sheets are infinitely versatile, but because they don't enforce any kind of abstraction, you can quickly make yourself a spaghetti of equations/macros.
- op00to 7y ago
  This happens in business analytics too. Exactly the same story, except the data changes and no one tells downstream consumers.
mhh__ 7y ago
Easy to the uninitiated sure - and that's not a bad thing - but anything that needs maintaining (in a professional sense) shouldn't be in a spreadsheet. I realize this is an unrealistic proposition, but think of all the principles we've developed (as an industry) that spreadsheets violate - no separation of code and data, prone to repetition etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZi9CSB9_kk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZi9CSB9_kk There was a talk at DConf about this with a bit more depth than what I've written here, and potential replacements
- badrabbit 7y ago
  Why do you feel a spreadsheet is unmaintainable? Especially with how many office workers who are already well versed in it? Some newer solution might require retraining all those people and migrating and will probablybe still much inferior than excel functionally given how many over the ages have failed to compete against it.
  - tryitnow 7y ago
    It's not that it's unmaintainable it's that it's a lot more difficult to maintain. You can get around this be having someone engineer a spreadsheet using all of the advanced functionality and VBA that Excel offers, but by that point it becomes a lot easier to just use an application that's built for whatever purpose you're trying to achieve. Spreadsheets are accessible for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean they're easy to use and maintain. "ease of use" implies "use" for some purpose. A lot of time ease of accessibility (anyone can click an icon and start entering numbers and doing calcs) conflicts with actually achieving whatever your purpose is. And if often conflicts with maintainability. Spreadsheets ease of accessibility is both their biggest benefit and their biggest drawback.
    - badrabbit 7y ago
      I don't know about that,ease of access means more people know how to maintain it. Specialized software means you need more hard to replace people making it have a higher cost of ownership. You're talking about maintainance from a developer perspective not a managerial perspective. Being cumbersome to maintain is not the same has requiring specialized knowledge ,specialized interoperability,licensing issues,training costs,etc...

Ididntdothis 7y ago

If there was only decent version control so you could go back quickly if something goes wrong.

alexhutcheson 7y ago
Google Sheets has this: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/190843 https://support.google.com/docs/answer/190843
ThisIsTheWay 7y ago
Excel's version control is decent if you use it properly. It's easy to track changes over time, view check in notes that describe what was updated (as long as the user enters them...), and reverting to prior versions is really easy.

londons_explore 7y ago

Sheets are great for single-user systems. As soon as multiple people try to use/modify the sheet, you end up with "Bob added a handy equation to track X, but Fred just wants to change Y but that breaks Bobs equation". Sheets are infinitely versatile, but because they don't enforce any kind of abstraction, you can quickly make yourself a spaghetti of equations/macros.

op00to 7y ago
This happens in business analytics too. Exactly the same story, except the data changes and no one tells downstream consumers.

mhh__ 7y ago

Easy to the uninitiated sure - and that's not a bad thing - but anything that needs maintaining (in a professional sense) shouldn't be in a spreadsheet. I realize this is an unrealistic proposition, but think of all the principles we've developed (as an industry) that spreadsheets violate - no separation of code and data, prone to repetition etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZi9CSB9_kk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZi9CSB9_kk There was a talk at DConf about this with a bit more depth than what I've written here, and potential replacements

badrabbit 7y ago
Why do you feel a spreadsheet is unmaintainable? Especially with how many office workers who are already well versed in it? Some newer solution might require retraining all those people and migrating and will probablybe still much inferior than excel functionally given how many over the ages have failed to compete against it.
- tryitnow 7y ago
  It's not that it's unmaintainable it's that it's a lot more difficult to maintain. You can get around this be having someone engineer a spreadsheet using all of the advanced functionality and VBA that Excel offers, but by that point it becomes a lot easier to just use an application that's built for whatever purpose you're trying to achieve. Spreadsheets are accessible for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean they're easy to use and maintain. "ease of use" implies "use" for some purpose. A lot of time ease of accessibility (anyone can click an icon and start entering numbers and doing calcs) conflicts with actually achieving whatever your purpose is. And if often conflicts with maintainability. Spreadsheets ease of accessibility is both their biggest benefit and their biggest drawback.
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    I don't know about that,ease of access means more people know how to maintain it. Specialized software means you need more hard to replace people making it have a higher cost of ownership. You're talking about maintainance from a developer perspective not a managerial perspective. Being cumbersome to maintain is not the same has requiring specialized knowledge ,specialized interoperability,licensing issues,training costs,etc...