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Do others here still recommend using Excel/Google Sheets despite having programming knowledge, or are there more powerful tools available (eg. Airtable) which m

Do others here still recommend using Excel/Google Sheets despite having programming knowledge, or are there more powerful tools available (eg. Airtable) which might be less accessible to people without tech backgrounds? If spreadsheets are still the way to go, any recommended resources on learning some best practices with them? I never got into spreadsheets because it seemed unnecessary after learning how to program, but I end up missing out on applications that might work in excel but which I don't care enough about to hand-write.

Arainach 6y ago
Excel is incredibly useful for all sorts of quick data crunching. My preferred introduction to intermediate-level spreadsheet usage is Joel Spoelsky’s “You Suck at Excel” https://youtu.be/0nbkaYsR94c https://youtu.be/0nbkaYsR94c
aksss 6y ago
Absolutely. Excel is a workhorse. It would be like asking if, since I got my bulldozer, do I ever still use a shovel. Yes. All the time. It has massive casual utility on a day-to-day basis. Add to that a lot of your business partners communicate information in Excel. When I was a young programmer I intentionally developed good excel skills because it was the idiom my customers knew. I felt like they would think less of me if I wasn’t competent on such a basic tool of business. And I think that instinct was correct. I look at someone in the corporate world who’s unable to sling a good spreadsheet as developmentally disabled. Like if you walked in saying you don’t know how to use a word processor. Spreadsheets are a way of exchanging data between humans in the same that word processors facilitate this, but for structured data sets. Time spent learning basic Excel functions (math stuff and xlookup for example) and how to build pivot tables will pay you dividends over the years.
munchbunny 6y ago
Yes, I absolutely still recommend Excel/Sheets. It highly depends on what work you need to do, but in general I use Excel for quick and dirty data crunching where the number of rows isn't that big (<100,000) and I don't expect to need to repeat the analysis often. For example, as a cyber security analyst, one-off sifting through some CSV format logs. Being able to do some basic transforms on the data with the benefit of real-time visualization is nice.

Arainach 6y ago

Excel is incredibly useful for all sorts of quick data crunching. My preferred introduction to intermediate-level spreadsheet usage is Joel Spoelsky’s “You Suck at Excel” https://youtu.be/0nbkaYsR94c https://youtu.be/0nbkaYsR94c

aksss 6y ago

Absolutely. Excel is a workhorse. It would be like asking if, since I got my bulldozer, do I ever still use a shovel. Yes. All the time. It has massive casual utility on a day-to-day basis. Add to that a lot of your business partners communicate information in Excel. When I was a young programmer I intentionally developed good excel skills because it was the idiom my customers knew. I felt like they would think less of me if I wasn’t competent on such a basic tool of business. And I think that instinct was correct. I look at someone in the corporate world who’s unable to sling a good spreadsheet as developmentally disabled. Like if you walked in saying you don’t know how to use a word processor. Spreadsheets are a way of exchanging data between humans in the same that word processors facilitate this, but for structured data sets. Time spent learning basic Excel functions (math stuff and xlookup for example) and how to build pivot tables will pay you dividends over the years.

munchbunny 6y ago

Yes, I absolutely still recommend Excel/Sheets. It highly depends on what work you need to do, but in general I use Excel for quick and dirty data crunching where the number of rows isn't that big (<100,000) and I don't expect to need to repeat the analysis often. For example, as a cyber security analyst, one-off sifting through some CSV format logs. Being able to do some basic transforms on the data with the benefit of real-time visualization is nice.