5 ms·

Yea exactly my take. This seems like exactly what Excel is good at doing.

by rco8786 2y ago

nisegami 2y ago
Excel isn't 'good' at anything. It is passable at a great many things.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  Quantity has a quality all its own.
  - whymeogod 2y ago
    Sounds like a certain LLM I've read about
  - TMWNN 2y ago
    It really does. Just the massive, massive ecosystem of online tutorials and answers and YouTube videos for every conceivable question [1] is incomparable. [1] Except the one you want the answer to at a given moment, amirite fellas?
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      >[1] Except the one you want the answer to at a given moment, amirite fellas? Everytime I relearn how to do a vlookup, none of the examples online do what I want. It's like they are trying to do something completely opposite of what I want. It's super weird, because what I want to do is always a pretty common thing to need done.
      - jaffa2 2y ago
        Never use vlookup . Always use match/index.
        Suppafly 2y ago
        >Always use match/index. I'm not sure how that'd help in any of the cases where I use vlookup.
sc68cal 2y ago
You are mistaking "being commonly used for this task" with "good at doing"
- tempaway64457 2y ago
  Replacing this excel sheet with a 'proper' system would cost between $5million and $20million probably, depending on what sort of consultancy delivered it
  - datadrivenangel 2y ago
    And would be inflexible, and maybe still wrong, and not necessarily more transparent... So it may mean several extra million dollars per year in ongoing maintenance if things turn out typically... Excel has many issues, but the cost of replacing it is surprisingly high.
    - TMWNN 2y ago
      >And would be inflexible, and maybe still wrong, and not necessarily more transparent... I'm going through this right now. Not anywhere in this scale, but just in terms of deciding whether to move an order-tracking/accounting system I've built in Excel to a "real" database. The database I am considering (Panorama X for Mac) is quite inexpensive, I've heard very good things about it, and has a spreadsheet-like UI. However, I've used Excel enough to know that I haven't tapped more than a small fraction of its ability, especially things like Power Query. As much as I loathe VBA, what if the cost of moving to a "real" database isn't the up-front cost, but the longer-term inflexibility of Panorama (and, pretty much, anything else in my price range) compared to the beast that is Excel?
  - tokyovigilante 2y ago
    Probably why the consultancy who produced the report referenced here was delighted to point it out.
- Retric 2y ago
  Anything commonly used for a task it’s good enough for that task even if “much better” options exist. Nail guns have a lot of downsides vs using screws, but being much faster and cheap offsets quite a lot.

Yea exactly my take. This seems like exactly what Excel is good at doing.

nisegami 2y ago

Excel isn't 'good' at anything. It is passable at a great many things.

potato3732842 2y ago
Quantity has a quality all its own.
- whymeogod 2y ago
  Sounds like a certain LLM I've read about
- TMWNN 2y ago
  It really does. Just the massive, massive ecosystem of online tutorials and answers and YouTube videos for every conceivable question [1] is incomparable. [1] Except the one you want the answer to at a given moment, amirite fellas?
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >[1] Except the one you want the answer to at a given moment, amirite fellas? Everytime I relearn how to do a vlookup, none of the examples online do what I want. It's like they are trying to do something completely opposite of what I want. It's super weird, because what I want to do is always a pretty common thing to need done.
    - jaffa2 2y ago
      Never use vlookup . Always use match/index.
      - Suppafly 2y ago
        >Always use match/index. I'm not sure how that'd help in any of the cases where I use vlookup.

sc68cal 2y ago

You are mistaking "being commonly used for this task" with "good at doing"

tempaway64457 2y ago
Replacing this excel sheet with a 'proper' system would cost between $5million and $20million probably, depending on what sort of consultancy delivered it
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  And would be inflexible, and maybe still wrong, and not necessarily more transparent... So it may mean several extra million dollars per year in ongoing maintenance if things turn out typically... Excel has many issues, but the cost of replacing it is surprisingly high.
  - TMWNN 2y ago
    >And would be inflexible, and maybe still wrong, and not necessarily more transparent... I'm going through this right now. Not anywhere in this scale, but just in terms of deciding whether to move an order-tracking/accounting system I've built in Excel to a "real" database. The database I am considering (Panorama X for Mac) is quite inexpensive, I've heard very good things about it, and has a spreadsheet-like UI. However, I've used Excel enough to know that I haven't tapped more than a small fraction of its ability, especially things like Power Query. As much as I loathe VBA, what if the cost of moving to a "real" database isn't the up-front cost, but the longer-term inflexibility of Panorama (and, pretty much, anything else in my price range) compared to the beast that is Excel?
- tokyovigilante 2y ago
  Probably why the consultancy who produced the report referenced here was delighted to point it out.
Retric 2y ago
Anything commonly used for a task it’s good enough for that task even if “much better” options exist. Nail guns have a lot of downsides vs using screws, but being much faster and cheap offsets quite a lot.