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I don't think that's quite fair. You run into that sort of problem with traditional software solutions as well, except sometimes even worse because business log
by extr 4y ago
I don't think that's quite fair. You run into that sort of problem with traditional software solutions as well, except sometimes even worse because business logic is deep in some esoteric codebase/language with all sorts of unclear dependencies. And instead of being able to ask your buddy in the accounting department to take a look, you need someone who knows Java or Python or whatever, you need a literal software engineer.
I've never been at a company that didn't have at least one Excel guru (well okay, I have. It was a tech startup!). The nice thing about Excel is that it's the same everywhere, widely used, and Well Understood, even if your particular spreadsheet isn't. Personally I would rather be handed a messy spreadsheet than a messy 5k LoC Python codebase.
- drumhead 4y agoYou tend to find these sorts of spreadsheets everywhere though, not just massive companies but small businesses, charities, non-profits. They dont have the manpower or resources to deal effectively with complexity. Its best not to add anything too complex to to their spreadsheets, but it still happens and organisations grow to reliant on them.
- extr 4y agoVery true. It's kind of a lesser evils situation as to where you want to put the complexity. Personally I'd feel more comfortable putting it in Excel than a traditional programming language, for the above reasons. But there are situations where that doesn't make sense either.