> Everyone uses Excel because it's a tool everybody learned at University or even highschool, nothing more My anecdote is the exact opposite. I was recently i

> Everyone uses Excel because it's a tool everybody learned at University or even highschool, nothing more My anecdote is the exact opposite. I was recently introduced to using Excel and actually writing some VBA inside of it when I helped a non-programmer with a complicated data processing task on a sheet they were populating from a database. This was the first time I really used Excel, even though I've had continuous access to it since Windows 3.0. Aside from some small annoyances, it was a generally pleasant experience. I also can't think of any tool that comes remotely close to the power and flexibility of Excel, particularly for people who are not programmers. I kind of got hooked on it, and now I frequently use it for little data processing tasks that I used to do in a REPL - and the bonus is I can share those with people who are not programmers.