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Excel may have failed in this specific task, but let’s not pretend like its functionality doesn’t run circles around Google Docs and LibreOffice. Excel is a “p

by acid__ 6y ago

Excel may have failed in this specific task, but let’s not pretend like its functionality doesn’t run circles around Google Docs and LibreOffice. Excel is a “pretty darn good” tool for 95% of tasks. If your work has highly varied workflows, then that flexibility more than makes up for its failures on the last 5%. If you have very specific workflows on the other hand, you may find value in replacing Excel with a specialist tool. But let’s not pretend that specialist tools don’t also have their own shortcomings; at best they’ll achieve 99.9% coverage of tasks.

reportgunner 6y ago
From my point of view Excel hits a sweet spot between 'very simple tasks' and 'very complex tasks'.
- _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
  The sweet spot being "too complicated for simple tasks" and "not sophisticated enough for complex tasks"?
  - BbzzbB 6y ago
    >"too complicated for simple tasks" How can Excel possibly be too complicated for simple tasks? It is pretty much as straightforward as it goes when it comes to grid-file viewing and editing. You can show it to anyone from a high-schooler to a 60 year old (with minimal experience on computers) colleagues and they will figure it out rather easily, good luck teaching Python/Pandas to the latter. >"not sophisticated enough for complex tasks" Not sure how that works either really. Between formulas and VBA macros, people have and are making tools complex enough they have no business to be an Excel, and yet they are even if it isn't the best tool for it. Once you go past that point, Excel isn't even in the conversation nor does it pretend to be able to. It has issues, and people playing or working with complex (or simple) data would be better served to learn programmatical tools, but until they do Excel will serve them well as long as they stay wary of basic quirks.
    - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
      You could presumably come up with similar arguments for why Word (or equivalents) isn't "too complicated for simple tasks" and "not sophisticated enough for complex tasks", but, from experience, I'd argue that's also incorrect.
      - BbzzbB 6y ago
        To be fair, I wasn't arguing in bad faith and I would've welcomed arguments (should you care enough to participate) to tell me why you are right. Instead you throw Word into the mix, for which those theories (perhaps ill-phrased, but I wouldn't call them arguments) can indeed be just as easily dismissed.
        _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
        I think the arguments are stronger against Word than they are for Excel, but they're similar. If you want to run some simple calculations on numbers, Excel is vastly overpowered and baroque. New version? Hope you've learned the new magic series of GUI clicks. Just like Word, Excel files are not inspectable (again, more baroque 'magic'). I can easily run calculations on plain texts tables in Emacs (along with the normal conveniences of being able to reorder by row, column; apply formulae across a range of cells etc.). And that's all displayed in plain text. And I can easily add new functions, keybindings, whatever, to suit my needs. But the fact that you say the arguments against Word "can indeed be just as easily dismissed" makes it unlikely that this is likely to be a productive dialogue. For Word, it's way more complicated than most people need, and again, users are at the (non-existing) mercy of the application. It's not very user-configurable - you have to learn how Word expects you to do things. Again, its data files are non-inspectable monstrosities, with minor corruption causing complete corruption, and fragility between versions. I manipulate text for a living. For simpler things, it's much easier and productive to use something like Markdown or (for more complex things) something like Org-mode. For complex things, I need LaTeX - Word simply lacks necessary functionality.
        BbzzbB 6y ago
cosmiccatnap 6y ago
We're not pretending. There are plenty of things that sheets can do that excel can't...it's not a new tool nor is it the best in it's class it's just got alot of bloatware preinstalled. For 99.9% of people the products are analogous, including sientists.

by acid__ 6y ago

reportgunner 6y ago

From my point of view Excel hits a sweet spot between 'very simple tasks' and 'very complex tasks'.

_emacsomancer_ 6y ago
The sweet spot being "too complicated for simple tasks" and "not sophisticated enough for complex tasks"?
- BbzzbB 6y ago
  >"too complicated for simple tasks" How can Excel possibly be too complicated for simple tasks? It is pretty much as straightforward as it goes when it comes to grid-file viewing and editing. You can show it to anyone from a high-schooler to a 60 year old (with minimal experience on computers) colleagues and they will figure it out rather easily, good luck teaching Python/Pandas to the latter. >"not sophisticated enough for complex tasks" Not sure how that works either really. Between formulas and VBA macros, people have and are making tools complex enough they have no business to be an Excel, and yet they are even if it isn't the best tool for it. Once you go past that point, Excel isn't even in the conversation nor does it pretend to be able to. It has issues, and people playing or working with complex (or simple) data would be better served to learn programmatical tools, but until they do Excel will serve them well as long as they stay wary of basic quirks.
  - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
    You could presumably come up with similar arguments for why Word (or equivalents) isn't "too complicated for simple tasks" and "not sophisticated enough for complex tasks", but, from experience, I'd argue that's also incorrect.
    - BbzzbB 6y ago
      To be fair, I wasn't arguing in bad faith and I would've welcomed arguments (should you care enough to participate) to tell me why you are right. Instead you throw Word into the mix, for which those theories (perhaps ill-phrased, but I wouldn't call them arguments) can indeed be just as easily dismissed.
      - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
        I think the arguments are stronger against Word than they are for Excel, but they're similar. If you want to run some simple calculations on numbers, Excel is vastly overpowered and baroque. New version? Hope you've learned the new magic series of GUI clicks. Just like Word, Excel files are not inspectable (again, more baroque 'magic'). I can easily run calculations on plain texts tables in Emacs (along with the normal conveniences of being able to reorder by row, column; apply formulae across a range of cells etc.). And that's all displayed in plain text. And I can easily add new functions, keybindings, whatever, to suit my needs. But the fact that you say the arguments against Word "can indeed be just as easily dismissed" makes it unlikely that this is likely to be a productive dialogue. For Word, it's way more complicated than most people need, and again, users are at the (non-existing) mercy of the application. It's not very user-configurable - you have to learn how Word expects you to do things. Again, its data files are non-inspectable monstrosities, with minor corruption causing complete corruption, and fragility between versions. I manipulate text for a living. For simpler things, it's much easier and productive to use something like Markdown or (for more complex things) something like Org-mode. For complex things, I need LaTeX - Word simply lacks necessary functionality.
        BbzzbB 6y ago

cosmiccatnap 6y ago

We're not pretending. There are plenty of things that sheets can do that excel can't...it's not a new tool nor is it the best in it's class it's just got alot of bloatware preinstalled. For 99.9% of people the products are analogous, including sientists.