4 ms·

The Tyranny of Excel

4 points by hermitcrab 5y ago

hermitcrab 5y ago
I sell 3 software products: an event seating planner, a visual planner and a data wrangling product. I'm confident that Excel is the biggest competitor for all 3.
aliasEli 5y ago
One problem with Excel is that it is mainly used by non-programmers. Approximately 10% of professional spread sheets contain serious errors. Another problem is that it mangles it inputs in unpredictable ways. Geneticists have been forced to rename certain gene names because Excel messed them up[0]. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/excel_gene_names/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/excel_gene_names/
- giardini 5y ago
  aliasEli says >" Approximately 10% of professional spread sheets contain serious errors."< That seems waaaayyyy low. The article referenced includes a link stating that 24% of Enron spreadsheets had errors: https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Enron_s_Spreadsheets_and_Related_Emails_A_Dataset_and_Analysis/1222882 https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Enron_s_S... The following says 96% of spreadsheets have errors: https://www.i-nth.com/resources/blog/your-spreadsheets-are-wrong https://www.i-nth.com/resources/blog/your-spreadsheets-are-w... That website has an excellent bibliography re spreadsheets and errors: https://www.i-nth.com/resources/bibliography/ https://www.i-nth.com/resources/bibliography/ University of Hawaii’s College of Business Administration researchers found that 88% of 113 spreadsheets audited had errors (and a wonderful leading story about a very ironic spreadsheet financial nightmare involving Lehman Bros and Barclay bank - If you're an Excel guru, read it!): https://vinsonedu.com/blog/88-of-all-spreadsheets-are- https://vinsonedu.com/blog/88-of-all-spreadsheets-are- marred-by-errors/ "What we know about spreadsheet errors (revised 2008) by Raymond R. Panko: https://web.archive.org/web/20191229170034/http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/SSR/Mypapers/whatknow.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20191229170034/http://panko.shid... Nonetheless, Excel rules! It seems that Excel spreadsheets will continue to proliferate until someone pries them out of accountants' and engineers' cold dead hands.
  - aliasEli 5y ago
    It was a long time ago that I looked into this. It is nice to see that there are better studies now. (I always thought that the number of errors seemed suspiciously low).
protomyth 5y ago
Well, its very simple. Your CFO and accountants can get things done without those meddling IT people who take forever and don't know anything about the business[1]. Your CFO and accountants are also a big enough power block in your company that IT cannot dictate terms to them. A lot of other programs that allowed end users to create content have fallen by the wayside, but accounting is more than capable of fighting off all comers. At some point, someone is going to get traction with a program easy enough for business and meeting IT's requirements. 1) yeah, I know its a bit over the top, but not much in certain companies

4 points by hermitcrab 5y ago

I sell 3 software products: an event seating planner, a visual planner and a data wrangling product. I'm confident that Excel is the biggest competitor for all 3.

aliasEli 5y ago

One problem with Excel is that it is mainly used by non-programmers. Approximately 10% of professional spread sheets contain serious errors. Another problem is that it mangles it inputs in unpredictable ways. Geneticists have been forced to rename certain gene names because Excel messed them up[0]. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/excel_gene_names/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/excel_gene_names/

giardini 5y ago
aliasEli says >" Approximately 10% of professional spread sheets contain serious errors."< That seems waaaayyyy low. The article referenced includes a link stating that 24% of Enron spreadsheets had errors: https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Enron_s_Spreadsheets_and_Related_Emails_A_Dataset_and_Analysis/1222882 https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Enron_s_S... The following says 96% of spreadsheets have errors: https://www.i-nth.com/resources/blog/your-spreadsheets-are-wrong https://www.i-nth.com/resources/blog/your-spreadsheets-are-w... That website has an excellent bibliography re spreadsheets and errors: https://www.i-nth.com/resources/bibliography/ https://www.i-nth.com/resources/bibliography/ University of Hawaii’s College of Business Administration researchers found that 88% of 113 spreadsheets audited had errors (and a wonderful leading story about a very ironic spreadsheet financial nightmare involving Lehman Bros and Barclay bank - If you're an Excel guru, read it!): https://vinsonedu.com/blog/88-of-all-spreadsheets-are- https://vinsonedu.com/blog/88-of-all-spreadsheets-are- marred-by-errors/ "What we know about spreadsheet errors (revised 2008) by Raymond R. Panko: https://web.archive.org/web/20191229170034/http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/SSR/Mypapers/whatknow.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20191229170034/http://panko.shid... Nonetheless, Excel rules! It seems that Excel spreadsheets will continue to proliferate until someone pries them out of accountants' and engineers' cold dead hands.
- aliasEli 5y ago
  It was a long time ago that I looked into this. It is nice to see that there are better studies now. (I always thought that the number of errors seemed suspiciously low).

protomyth 5y ago

Well, its very simple. Your CFO and accountants can get things done without those meddling IT people who take forever and don't know anything about the business[1]. Your CFO and accountants are also a big enough power block in your company that IT cannot dictate terms to them. A lot of other programs that allowed end users to create content have fallen by the wayside, but accounting is more than capable of fighting off all comers. At some point, someone is going to get traction with a program easy enough for business and meeting IT's requirements. 1) yeah, I know its a bit over the top, but not much in certain companies