4 ms·

His "arguments" are at the "This Is Gatekeeping" paragraph. It boils down to "spreadsheets are too fragile to be the foundation of any business-critical data pi

by plq 4y ago

His "arguments" are at the "This Is Gatekeeping" paragraph. It boils down to "spreadsheets are too fragile to be the foundation of any business-critical data pipeline"

jraph 4y ago
In which ways? I agree with this, but I'm interested in example of things that can break. Assuming I've not been badly burned by spreadsheets in an automated process, I would not be convinced by this post alone. It would be interesting for instance as additional convincing arguments I could give to refuse spreadsheet use in a process. But maybe this is not the point of this post.
- stemlord 4y ago
  Basically: user input doesn't have enough constraints
- ludicity 4y ago
  I must plead before HN that I actually didn't post this myself because I wasn't making a serious case, and was mostly just having a bit of fun. I don't want business users to feel bad about their spreadsheet use because it does empower them, but they certainly drive me crazy at times. However, for some actual points, discussing spreadsheets specifically and ignoring SharePoint etc: - As another pointed out, the sheets tend to have no constraints on what users enter - Users will tend to begin performing ad-hoc queries inside the spreadsheet, making reading it a nightmare later on - If you look away from three seconds, the data will be pivoted into a format that makes it super hard to move to a database later on - People will start to keep multiple versions of the sheet around like 'analysis', 'analysis_final', and 'analysis_FINAL', scatter them around a network drive, and trust God to sort them out later - Probably a million more things that I can't think up ad hoc At work, I do relentlessly advocate for us not to use spreadsheets, though I certainly don't threaten people in this way. And that's because we have the resources to do things better, and instead of empowering people the right way, we get them to do everything in Excel instead of leveraging the real power of the appropriate technology. There's probably an extensive place for Excel, when wielded responsibly or in contexts where there's no way at all that you can afford the staff to manage a more robust solution. And, most importantly, I was hoping the judge would be lenient if my lawyer could reasonably argue that I warned the victims.
  - jraph 4y ago
    > I must plead before HN that I actually didn't post this myself because I wasn't making a serious case, and was mostly just having a bit of fun Ok, thanks for the fun :-) and thanks for the serious answer.

by plq 4y ago

His "arguments" are at the "This Is Gatekeeping" paragraph. It boils down to "spreadsheets are too fragile to be the foundation of any business-critical data pipeline"

jraph 4y ago

In which ways? I agree with this, but I'm interested in example of things that can break. Assuming I've not been badly burned by spreadsheets in an automated process, I would not be convinced by this post alone. It would be interesting for instance as additional convincing arguments I could give to refuse spreadsheet use in a process. But maybe this is not the point of this post.

stemlord 4y ago
Basically: user input doesn't have enough constraints
ludicity 4y ago
I must plead before HN that I actually didn't post this myself because I wasn't making a serious case, and was mostly just having a bit of fun. I don't want business users to feel bad about their spreadsheet use because it does empower them, but they certainly drive me crazy at times. However, for some actual points, discussing spreadsheets specifically and ignoring SharePoint etc: - As another pointed out, the sheets tend to have no constraints on what users enter - Users will tend to begin performing ad-hoc queries inside the spreadsheet, making reading it a nightmare later on - If you look away from three seconds, the data will be pivoted into a format that makes it super hard to move to a database later on - People will start to keep multiple versions of the sheet around like 'analysis', 'analysis_final', and 'analysis_FINAL', scatter them around a network drive, and trust God to sort them out later - Probably a million more things that I can't think up ad hoc At work, I do relentlessly advocate for us not to use spreadsheets, though I certainly don't threaten people in this way. And that's because we have the resources to do things better, and instead of empowering people the right way, we get them to do everything in Excel instead of leveraging the real power of the appropriate technology. There's probably an extensive place for Excel, when wielded responsibly or in contexts where there's no way at all that you can afford the staff to manage a more robust solution. And, most importantly, I was hoping the judge would be lenient if my lawyer could reasonably argue that I warned the victims.
- jraph 4y ago
  > I must plead before HN that I actually didn't post this myself because I wasn't making a serious case, and was mostly just having a bit of fun Ok, thanks for the fun :-) and thanks for the serious answer.