6 ms·
Excel single-handedly redeems Microsoft from being a pure drain on human existence, but I can’t see what the point of the company is beyond that. Enterprise so
by sevensor 1y ago
Excel single-handedly redeems Microsoft from being a pure drain on human existence, but I can’t see what the point of the company is beyond that. Enterprise something something maybe. And declining literacy makes Powerpoint unfortunately indispensable.
- tomalbrc 1y agoLets not pretend like there wouldn't be dozen of quality and actually used software if it wasn't for microsoft existing.
- eitland 1y agoI actively prefer Libre Office. Yes, Excel is probably a lot better if you use English setup and advanced functions. For me, - not having to use Norwegian for formulas (my work machine has Norwegian setup and Excel insists on using Norwegian formulas) and - not having it trying to find something it can misinterpret as a date, preferably some random place in a list of thousands of items makes it worth it.
- eisa01 1y agoJust change your windows display language to English?
- alexvitkov 1y agoShould I also change it on my mother's computer who doesn't speak English? We can also start distributing .bat files that change the system language along with our spreadsheets, for anyone who wants to open them. Maybe automate it with VBS, so it changes automatically when you open the spreadsheet. That's the solution.
- rickdeckard 1y agoThe VBS should then also lock the spreadsheet to foreground while it's opened, because the global change may affect other apps, like Windows Calculator may swap the comma/thousand separator. Will write a user story for that if you share the link /s
- eitland 1y agoWork computer, so I might not be able to do it. Also, why shouldn’t I be able to choose which language I use in Excel when they’re clearly all available? Why do software companies these days insist on treating me as though I can’t look after myself?
- scbrg 1y agoInteresting. I consider Excel the worst of Microsoft's misdeeds. Not that there's not an abundance to pick from, but Excel may very well top the list. It's perhaps the single worst database in the world; with no type control, no relationship management, no data safety whatsoever to speak of (it even actively mangles your data), its interface is utter madness, and yet - it's the most used database in the world. It's perhaps the single worst development and runtime environment in the world, obscuring code, making reasoning about code and relations between code almost impossible, using a very obscure macro language that even morphs between different computers, and yet - it's the most used development and runtime environment in the world. It's perhaps the single worst protocol/data exchange format in the world, with dozens of intentionally obscure, undocumented versions, insane format with surprising limitation (did I mention it actively mangles your data? - it's worth repeating anyway), supremely inefficient, and yet - it's the most used protocol/data exchange format in the world. I can't really think of anything in the computing world that has done as much damage as Excel.
- icameron 1y agoEverything you say is not wrong. But despite being so horrible, the business world still runs on excel. Finance, underwriting, accounting, engineering tools, fantasy football leagues… Excel is a highly used tool possibly the most used tool and enables many users who do not consider themselves programmers to be productive with their PCs. It’s timeless and hated by many for valid reasons, but its impact is vast.
- Sharlin 1y agoBut that's just path dependency. If Excel didn't exist, everything would run on something or somethings else. And it's not clear whether this timeline is better or worse than the average timeline in that respect.
- ethbr1 1y agoI'd need a pretty strong argument to believe the world would be better absent spreadsheet programs. My starting point would be that in their absence, a lot of problems wouldn't have been solved with computers, for want of programmers.
- achenet 1y ago> And declining literacy makes Powerpoint unfortunately indispensable. I'd argue the opposite: Powerpoint makes literacy decline. "PowerPoint makes us stupid." – General James N. Mattis, USMC [source: https://paulgraham.com/quo.html https://paulgraham.com/quo.html ]
- the-mitr 1y agoRelated Cognitive Style of Powerpoint - Edward Tufte http://makingdatatalk.com/Lecture01/Reading/Tufte-TheCognitive%20StyleOfPowerPoint.pdf http://makingdatatalk.com/Lecture01/Reading/Tufte-TheCogniti...
- Gud 1y agoMicrosoft are wielding the entire office suite as a weapon against free and interoperable formats… It is the single biggest blocked against open computing. If Microsoft were serious about open source like another poster claimed, they would let us run it on all platforms.
- novok 1y agoMuch like iOS/Android & the Web killed MSFTs stranglehold on OSes, google docs & markdown killed MSFT office's stranglehold on office. So many businesses are google doc shops, vast majority of schools are google docs, vast majority of casual document usage is google docs and google docs is open-enough with it's export formats. Excel at this point is specialist software, like adobe photoshop. Everything else is 'good enough'.
- Gud 1y agoI’ve never come across Google docs in the wild in a corporate setting. Seems to me Microsoft office is still the dominant player.
- ghaff 1y agoMicrosoft Office is probably still the largest player but a former large company I worked for absolutely used Google for 95% of purposes. I didn't even have a Microsoft Office license. It's very common. If we had to exchange docs with someone that didn't use Google, we'd export formats in some way including, often, to PDF.
- rpdillon 1y agoIt's all anecdotal, but I haven't seen Microsoft Office in my job since 2010. It's been wall-to-wall Google for the past four companies.
- hylaride 1y agoGsuite (including docs) is the norm at most companies I’ve worked at that have been founded since 2010, though the finance depts usually also had their own excel licenses. That being said, excel itself is still more powerful than google sheets, but the collaborative nature of Gsuite beats the pants off of MS Office, online or native.
- fnord123 1y ago> Excel single-handedly redeems Microsoft from being a pure drain on human existence Debatable. Excel can't even open CSV files properly. You need to run the import wizard. But loads of people don't do this. They see a file on their desktop and double click it. Why can't double clicking a CSV file just open the import wizard!? (Because they want people to share xlsx files as a data format.)
- withinboredom 1y agoI assume most Americans don't run into the CSV hell that other countries do. In my current country, whether CSVs open as a comma-separated or semi-colon seperated document depends on whether the OS is set to use a , or a . for decimal numbers. It's absolutely annoying.
- herbst 1y agoAmericans don't use CSV?
- withinboredom 1y agoDepending on whether your OS uses a , or a . for decimal numbers changes how excel will parse a CSV file. Americans use a . for decimal numbers, so it will parse it as a CSV. Other countries use a , for decimal numbers, so it will parse it as a SSV (semi-colon separated) and everything will be in a single column. To make matters worse, randomly, employees will have their OS using US or GB locales so that if you distribute a CSV, it will work for some employees, but not for others.
- herbst 1y agoI don't know any of these problems. I use a modern operating system and office suite that supports CSV not a specific subset and syntax of it.
- mattmanser 1y ago
- pessimizer 1y agoExcel and Minesweeper. I'm still so angry about what they did to Minesweeper.
- AtlasBarfed 1y agoWho invented the spreadsheet? The victors truly get to write history, don't they?
- AbstractH24 1y agoI just wish the Mac version wasn’t so painful