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Shitty Software Saves Lives They even make this case Not software - "you have to download a bloody pdf. Then you have to print it. You fill it up with a pen..

Shitty Software Saves Lives They even make this case Not software - "you have to download a bloody pdf. Then you have to print it. You fill it up with a pen...." BBC - "Excel: Why using Microsoft's tool caused Covid-19 results to be lost" But it worked. Excel is brilliant software with decades of work, it was the (Shitty) scripts that 'failed' ignoring BBC Excel headlines. Except they got the scripts running, made a mistake, fixed it and moved on pretty quick.

Veen 6y ago
I recently read the biography of Jeremy Heywood, who was the UK's Cabinet Secretary—essentially the leader of the civil service and the person in charge of making sure the government functions. Excel got several mentions, and the book gives the impression that our government, including the Treasury, more or less runs on spreadsheets.
- bombcar 6y ago
  This is true of most if not all of the business world. It runs on spreadsheets, apps that imitate spreadsheets, or hand-built spreadsheet equivalents.
- p_l 6y ago
  If that scares you... never look at how sausage is made in FMCG world. One of the major companies in that area essentially uses Excel as standard data format, that is exchanged by applications etc. Capo di tutti capi of the company (i.e. the CEO of the overall controlling entity of the whole multinational) might be woken up if, by the end of the month, a bunch of Excel/CSV files aren't exported from a certain database, feeding a bunch of downstream applications, which in turn will provide Excel files to employees. The less insane use of Excel there was as human interface, where Excel files were used both to query external services, but also as input files/forms that could be sent as attachment and "cosigned" by appropriate person.
ghaff 6y ago
The other thing that happens with Excel is it starts out really being the right MVP for some task. But that task grows and grows over time and Excel keeps right on being used well past the point a database should have been implemented instead.

Veen 6y ago

I recently read the biography of Jeremy Heywood, who was the UK's Cabinet Secretary—essentially the leader of the civil service and the person in charge of making sure the government functions. Excel got several mentions, and the book gives the impression that our government, including the Treasury, more or less runs on spreadsheets.

bombcar 6y ago
This is true of most if not all of the business world. It runs on spreadsheets, apps that imitate spreadsheets, or hand-built spreadsheet equivalents.
p_l 6y ago
If that scares you... never look at how sausage is made in FMCG world. One of the major companies in that area essentially uses Excel as standard data format, that is exchanged by applications etc. Capo di tutti capi of the company (i.e. the CEO of the overall controlling entity of the whole multinational) might be woken up if, by the end of the month, a bunch of Excel/CSV files aren't exported from a certain database, feeding a bunch of downstream applications, which in turn will provide Excel files to employees. The less insane use of Excel there was as human interface, where Excel files were used both to query external services, but also as input files/forms that could be sent as attachment and "cosigned" by appropriate person.

ghaff 6y ago

The other thing that happens with Excel is it starts out really being the right MVP for some task. But that task grows and grows over time and Excel keeps right on being used well past the point a database should have been implemented instead.