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Another oft overlooked point is that anti-spreadsheet people aren't actually against using spreadsheets, we just want our coworkers to stop placing mission crit

Another oft overlooked point is that anti-spreadsheet people aren't actually against using spreadsheets, we just want our coworkers to stop placing mission critical operations in an enormous, half-baked spreadsheet that exists only in some long-since retired users home directory.

jader201 1y ago
I see these complaints on HN a lot, and maybe it’s anecdotal, but I just don’t see this in the real world these days. If someone shares a sheet with me, it’s for the intended purpose of sharing data and/or visualizations of that data. I’ve always been a huge fan of spreadsheets, and the rare times I’ve encountered them being misused, it was a long time ago, and not near enough to make me an “anti-spreadsheet” person. It sounds like these anti-spreadsheet people need to find a new place to work and/or new coworkers. Either way people shouldn’t be anti-spreadsheets because some people misuse them. That doesn’t change the fact that they’re a great tool for tracking/sharing/visualizing data.
- mebizzle 1y ago
  This is anecdotal bias even now. The number of these monster spreadsheets running organizations that should be more sophisticated than they are would most likely keep anyone here up at night.
- abruzzi 1y ago
  > I see these complaints on HN a lot, and maybe it’s anecdotal, but I just don’t see this in the real world these days. It happens all the time where I work. I don't want to be specific, but we have lots of examples here. In some cases people don't like the core software, so they work around it by tracking things on a spreadsheet. And sometimes that spreadsheet disappears (in one case, it was being kept on an XLSX on a USB thumb drive, but the thumb drive got corrupted and we lost some very important data.)
  - jacobr1 1y ago
    The availability angle changes things quite a bit. Having a single source of truth online sheet is much different than a file that is passed around.
- jofer 1y ago
  This depends a lot on what you do. Try working with a decision analyst sometime. The entire economic model with a decision tree and monte carlo analysis of cost overruns, etc for a multi-trillion dollar decision will literally be a arcanely-complex spreadsheet or two on someone's laptop. With that said, it's still a great tool for the job because the different stakeholders can inspect it.
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  >I just don’t see this in the real world these days Lol. Go to literally any bank. They all have a legion of accountant,analyists that's sole job is to maintain their little fiefdom of spreadsheets that only they understand. If most people knew just how held together by string,tape and gum the banking industry is there would be a run on the banks. There is also always some 75+yo part time guy that maintains some sort of critical system. He always says, "I want to retire but they keep throwing more money at me"
- zdragnar 1y ago
  I was part of a team helping a Fortune 500 company whose inventory system was basically a master spreadsheet that maybe 8 people in the company actually had write access to. Everyone reported numbers up to them and the spreadsheet had read only views for purchase order projections. To say that it was a nightmare was an understatement. They were willing to dump vast sums of money to get something better, but they'd homebrewed so many human processes to deal with the spreadsheet that they struggled to adapt to a more conventional way of doing things.
  - zer00eyz 1y ago
    Found the GAP employee. And if you aren't this story could have come from one.
    - zdragnar 1y ago
      Not GAP, not even clothing, but still retail.
- Wojtkie 1y ago
  My big gripe with spreadsheets is just that there's a lot of bloat on top of the spreadsheet which makes large datasets difficult to work with. Otherwise, I find them to be great deliverables.
  - gregates 1y ago
    How large are you talking about? Have you tried https://rowzero.io https://rowzero.io?
- jamesnorden 1y ago
  >but I just don’t see this in the real world these days May be due to the fact you're a single datapoint and not omnipresent at every company. What a weird argument.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 1y ago
As opposed to placing the mission critical operations in some huge enterprise Java deployment which has been touched by thousands of contractors, all of whom have only a very rudimentary understanding of the actual business logic. I think even a complicated spreadsheet that can be directly edited and modified by the actual business stakeholders is preferred.
- breadwinner 1y ago
  > even a complicated spreadsheet that can be directly edited and modified by the actual business stakeholders You can do that in a spreadsheet-database hybrid such as Airtable.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  The main problem is that a complex spreadsheet is just code. Its a bundle of logic and data. That's code. If the business stakeholders can edit said spreadsheet, they can code. Not well probably, but they can. So, theoretically, they should be able to open a python script or whatever and hack away. A lot of calculations are actually much easier and straightforward in a real language as opposed to Excel. But they won't, partially because developers would never let them.
breadwinner 1y ago
You need to give them a tool that's as easy to use as a spreadsheet, and yet stores data in a relational database. There are plenty of spreadsheet-database hybrids in the market.
- gregates 1y ago
  Are any of them as easy to use as a spreadsheet?
  - breadwinner 1y ago
    I would say Airtable is. Or if your users are slightly more technical you can try https://visualdb.com/ https://visualdb.com/ because it lets you use your own Postgres instance as the backend db.
    - pletnes 1y ago
      I’ve used Airtable a bit. I think it’s really cool and would like more people to use it. However, it’s a lot more clicks and key presses to get things done - especially data entry - than in Excel. This also makes it better, since you can put constraints on tables, for instance.
      - breadwinner 1y ago
        You are absolutely right about needing more clicks and key strokes in Airtable. You have to reach the pain threshold in order to look for alternatives to Excel. And how soon you reach the pain threshold depends on how big your data is and how many users are trying to modify the same data at the same time. See here to understand what you are missing out by not using a database: https://visualdb.com/comparison/#integrity https://visualdb.com/comparison/#integrity
    - mstkllah 1y ago
      I feel quite comfortable in Excel - used various tools like Power Pivot, Power Query, OLEDB, created my own functions, Python within Excel, etc. - but Airtable felt so confusing and limiting. Other former colleagues also struggled with Airtable; maybe it was not explained to us correctly.
gregates 1y ago
As someone who has been to multiple trade shows to show off our own spreadsheet product that solves some of these problems (https://rowzero.io/home https://rowzero.io/home), I can tell you there are a bunch of data engineers and their managers who have a visceral hatred of spreadsheets but have trouble articulating any reason for it.
- immibis 1y ago
  Feels a bit like the no-code paradox though. When you make a sufficiently advanced no-code (or no-database) tool it becomes equivalent to code (or a database) and even though it does entice a novice to start using it, a complex system made in it is still complex code (or a complex database) and ends up requiring a competent programmer (or db admin) to maintain it, who wishes it was written the normal way to begin with.
  - gregates 1y ago
    I have no doubt that the stories of complex spreadsheet models as the beating heart of a business are true. But those models are likely the sole survivor from a thousand dead and gone spreadsheets that people extracted value from for a time, but just didn't have the ongoing utility or wide enough audience to merit being turned into a dashboard or web app. It would be a mistake to insist that all of those spreadsheets should have started life as something else, just in case maintenance should someday become necessary. In other words, one of the core use cases for a spreadsheet is that it empowers a broad swathe of users (broader than Tableau or PowerBI) to quickly extract insights from their data to fill immediate needs. Or at least, that's a core use case if you can get your data into a spreadsheet without too much trouble.
    - bobson381 1y ago
      And then the attached part of this that you mentioned is that the cursed survivors have essentially outcompeted their peers for survival. They're winners of a genetic algorithm whose basis is company data. They have close contact with actual reality, and have been beaten carefully into shape by it. I have kind of a grudging respect for these because of that, actually.
goostavos 1y ago
One of the surprising things about working inside of $MegaCorp is that if you knock on enough doors, you'll eventually find that each org has, like, one dude* with a spread sheet that powers everything else. Teams will get spun up to try to "automate" this spreadsheet, but, on a long enough time horizon, the spreadsheet wins.
- analog31 1y ago
  And it was probably created without approval.
  - kayo_20211030 1y ago
    ... and been changed 3 times in the weeks it took to deliver the app.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  Similar to the author’s cases: I’ve sat through several presentations of small teams who worked for 6-10 weeks to create a web app that does something (the details vary slightly from case to case) where at the end of the presentation, my first thought is “what a waste of effort and money; that would have taken 2-4 hours if they’d just used a spreadsheet”.
  - array_key_first 1y ago
    This speaks more to the complexity of web and web development than as a pro of spreadsheets. You can create a super quick Python app with visualization and whatnot in about the same time as a spreadsheet. But then it's not online. And it's not best practice. Web is just a fucking beast and then developers go in and add additional complexity. It would probably be a much simpler web app if you made it just, like, a bunch of PHP scripts thrown in a folder. But they won't do that.
citizenpaul 1y ago
Excel, creating job security since 1997.
supportengineer 1y ago
That's every company I've ever worked for, whether they have 100 employees or 300,000.
emeril 1y ago
so true - as the spreadsheet "guru" at most of my employers - most of the issues with spreadsheets is misuse which is very common sadly though, much programming is poor and often can be accomplished better in a spreadsheet given the situation and use case...

jader201 1y ago

I see these complaints on HN a lot, and maybe it’s anecdotal, but I just don’t see this in the real world these days. If someone shares a sheet with me, it’s for the intended purpose of sharing data and/or visualizations of that data. I’ve always been a huge fan of spreadsheets, and the rare times I’ve encountered them being misused, it was a long time ago, and not near enough to make me an “anti-spreadsheet” person. It sounds like these anti-spreadsheet people need to find a new place to work and/or new coworkers. Either way people shouldn’t be anti-spreadsheets because some people misuse them. That doesn’t change the fact that they’re a great tool for tracking/sharing/visualizing data.

mebizzle 1y ago
This is anecdotal bias even now. The number of these monster spreadsheets running organizations that should be more sophisticated than they are would most likely keep anyone here up at night.
abruzzi 1y ago
> I see these complaints on HN a lot, and maybe it’s anecdotal, but I just don’t see this in the real world these days. It happens all the time where I work. I don't want to be specific, but we have lots of examples here. In some cases people don't like the core software, so they work around it by tracking things on a spreadsheet. And sometimes that spreadsheet disappears (in one case, it was being kept on an XLSX on a USB thumb drive, but the thumb drive got corrupted and we lost some very important data.)
- jacobr1 1y ago
  The availability angle changes things quite a bit. Having a single source of truth online sheet is much different than a file that is passed around.
jofer 1y ago
This depends a lot on what you do. Try working with a decision analyst sometime. The entire economic model with a decision tree and monte carlo analysis of cost overruns, etc for a multi-trillion dollar decision will literally be a arcanely-complex spreadsheet or two on someone's laptop. With that said, it's still a great tool for the job because the different stakeholders can inspect it.
citizenpaul 1y ago
>I just don’t see this in the real world these days Lol. Go to literally any bank. They all have a legion of accountant,analyists that's sole job is to maintain their little fiefdom of spreadsheets that only they understand. If most people knew just how held together by string,tape and gum the banking industry is there would be a run on the banks. There is also always some 75+yo part time guy that maintains some sort of critical system. He always says, "I want to retire but they keep throwing more money at me"
zdragnar 1y ago
I was part of a team helping a Fortune 500 company whose inventory system was basically a master spreadsheet that maybe 8 people in the company actually had write access to. Everyone reported numbers up to them and the spreadsheet had read only views for purchase order projections. To say that it was a nightmare was an understatement. They were willing to dump vast sums of money to get something better, but they'd homebrewed so many human processes to deal with the spreadsheet that they struggled to adapt to a more conventional way of doing things.
- zer00eyz 1y ago
  Found the GAP employee. And if you aren't this story could have come from one.
  - zdragnar 1y ago
    Not GAP, not even clothing, but still retail.
Wojtkie 1y ago
My big gripe with spreadsheets is just that there's a lot of bloat on top of the spreadsheet which makes large datasets difficult to work with. Otherwise, I find them to be great deliverables.
- gregates 1y ago
  How large are you talking about? Have you tried https://rowzero.io https://rowzero.io?
jamesnorden 1y ago
>but I just don’t see this in the real world these days May be due to the fact you're a single datapoint and not omnipresent at every company. What a weird argument.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 1y ago

As opposed to placing the mission critical operations in some huge enterprise Java deployment which has been touched by thousands of contractors, all of whom have only a very rudimentary understanding of the actual business logic. I think even a complicated spreadsheet that can be directly edited and modified by the actual business stakeholders is preferred.

breadwinner 1y ago
> even a complicated spreadsheet that can be directly edited and modified by the actual business stakeholders You can do that in a spreadsheet-database hybrid such as Airtable.
array_key_first 1y ago
The main problem is that a complex spreadsheet is just code. Its a bundle of logic and data. That's code. If the business stakeholders can edit said spreadsheet, they can code. Not well probably, but they can. So, theoretically, they should be able to open a python script or whatever and hack away. A lot of calculations are actually much easier and straightforward in a real language as opposed to Excel. But they won't, partially because developers would never let them.

breadwinner 1y ago

You need to give them a tool that's as easy to use as a spreadsheet, and yet stores data in a relational database. There are plenty of spreadsheet-database hybrids in the market.

gregates 1y ago
Are any of them as easy to use as a spreadsheet?
- breadwinner 1y ago
  I would say Airtable is. Or if your users are slightly more technical you can try https://visualdb.com/ https://visualdb.com/ because it lets you use your own Postgres instance as the backend db.
  - pletnes 1y ago
    I’ve used Airtable a bit. I think it’s really cool and would like more people to use it. However, it’s a lot more clicks and key presses to get things done - especially data entry - than in Excel. This also makes it better, since you can put constraints on tables, for instance.
    - breadwinner 1y ago
      You are absolutely right about needing more clicks and key strokes in Airtable. You have to reach the pain threshold in order to look for alternatives to Excel. And how soon you reach the pain threshold depends on how big your data is and how many users are trying to modify the same data at the same time. See here to understand what you are missing out by not using a database: https://visualdb.com/comparison/#integrity https://visualdb.com/comparison/#integrity
  - mstkllah 1y ago
    I feel quite comfortable in Excel - used various tools like Power Pivot, Power Query, OLEDB, created my own functions, Python within Excel, etc. - but Airtable felt so confusing and limiting. Other former colleagues also struggled with Airtable; maybe it was not explained to us correctly.

gregates 1y ago

As someone who has been to multiple trade shows to show off our own spreadsheet product that solves some of these problems (https://rowzero.io/home https://rowzero.io/home), I can tell you there are a bunch of data engineers and their managers who have a visceral hatred of spreadsheets but have trouble articulating any reason for it.

immibis 1y ago
Feels a bit like the no-code paradox though. When you make a sufficiently advanced no-code (or no-database) tool it becomes equivalent to code (or a database) and even though it does entice a novice to start using it, a complex system made in it is still complex code (or a complex database) and ends up requiring a competent programmer (or db admin) to maintain it, who wishes it was written the normal way to begin with.
- gregates 1y ago
  I have no doubt that the stories of complex spreadsheet models as the beating heart of a business are true. But those models are likely the sole survivor from a thousand dead and gone spreadsheets that people extracted value from for a time, but just didn't have the ongoing utility or wide enough audience to merit being turned into a dashboard or web app. It would be a mistake to insist that all of those spreadsheets should have started life as something else, just in case maintenance should someday become necessary. In other words, one of the core use cases for a spreadsheet is that it empowers a broad swathe of users (broader than Tableau or PowerBI) to quickly extract insights from their data to fill immediate needs. Or at least, that's a core use case if you can get your data into a spreadsheet without too much trouble.
  - bobson381 1y ago
    And then the attached part of this that you mentioned is that the cursed survivors have essentially outcompeted their peers for survival. They're winners of a genetic algorithm whose basis is company data. They have close contact with actual reality, and have been beaten carefully into shape by it. I have kind of a grudging respect for these because of that, actually.

goostavos 1y ago

One of the surprising things about working inside of $MegaCorp is that if you knock on enough doors, you'll eventually find that each org has, like, one dude* with a spread sheet that powers everything else. Teams will get spun up to try to "automate" this spreadsheet, but, on a long enough time horizon, the spreadsheet wins.

analog31 1y ago
And it was probably created without approval.
- kayo_20211030 1y ago
  ... and been changed 3 times in the weeks it took to deliver the app.
sokoloff 1y ago
Similar to the author’s cases: I’ve sat through several presentations of small teams who worked for 6-10 weeks to create a web app that does something (the details vary slightly from case to case) where at the end of the presentation, my first thought is “what a waste of effort and money; that would have taken 2-4 hours if they’d just used a spreadsheet”.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  This speaks more to the complexity of web and web development than as a pro of spreadsheets. You can create a super quick Python app with visualization and whatnot in about the same time as a spreadsheet. But then it's not online. And it's not best practice. Web is just a fucking beast and then developers go in and add additional complexity. It would probably be a much simpler web app if you made it just, like, a bunch of PHP scripts thrown in a folder. But they won't do that.

citizenpaul 1y ago

Excel, creating job security since 1997.

supportengineer 1y ago

That's every company I've ever worked for, whether they have 100 employees or 300,000.

emeril 1y ago

so true - as the spreadsheet "guru" at most of my employers - most of the issues with spreadsheets is misuse which is very common sadly though, much programming is poor and often can be accomplished better in a spreadsheet given the situation and use case...