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Where this falls apart is commercial software. The issue is we use off-the-shelf frameworks and tools for commercial software. And then we don't train developer

Where this falls apart is commercial software. The issue is we use off-the-shelf frameworks and tools for commercial software. And then we don't train developers on how to write high-volume software. Commercial software is THE power user use case. Your users will be using your software 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for years. And still, the software is obtuse point-and-click garbage. Meanwhile commercial software from 25 years ago could be navigated at light speed. That's part of the reason Excel can't be dethroned. Excel is from the old age of software, and that means that users can input and navigate at light speed. All these fancy tools claim to dethrone Excel, but when you actually use them you realize it's a goo goo ga ga Fisher Price level UI. Extreme amounts of whitespace, buttons hidden behind submenus of submenus (which you have to navigate by eye, by the way!), features stripped, UI constantly shuffling around between updates. Look, that works fine for a website on the open web where you assume your users have never touched a computer before. That does not work for commercial software.

NooneAtAll3 1mo ago
I think you vaaastly overestimate how excel is used by most users if anything, excel exceeds in being MOUSE-driven - it's intuitive in what you press and what you drag and that's kinda my problem with the TFA - author is not representative of typical user. Mouse interaction is the king
- layer8 1mo ago
  Maybe by most users, but not by most users who use it for many hours daily for professional tasks (i.e. not just as a kind of tabular list editor).
- preg_match 1mo ago
  Basically everyone in a white collar job who is NOT a developer is using Excel. I'm a developer, even I have to use Excel at work.
  - NooneAtAll3 1mo ago
    that's exactly what I'm saying basically everyone uses Excel. And basically everyone is a MOUSE-first user (or, even further along the chain: TOUCHSCREEN-first) keyboard-based menu navigation is not intuitive. it can be "poweruser" oriented, but it's not for most of the userbase
    - rhdunn 1mo ago
      Keyboard shortcuts for those menu items are what most people will learn -- save, print, cut, copy, and paste will be the common ones that a lot of people will know. I'd be willing to bet that professional typists and people who spend the majority of their day typing (email, word, IDEs/text editors, etc.) are the ones who will know more keyboard shortcuts and navigation, especially for the things they do repeatedly.
      - danaris 1mo ago
        > Keyboard shortcuts for those menu items are what most people will learn -- save, print, cut, copy, and paste will be the common ones that a lot of people will know. I would say that it's true that the keyboard shortcuts for those items are the ones most likely for people to learn, but not true that most people will learn them. I've spent 15 years in (tech support/programming for) academia, working with genuinely very smart people who use computers every day of their life, many of whom are actively looking for better ways to use those computers in their teaching and research, and 9/10 of them go to the Edit menu for Copy and Paste every. single. time.
    - preg_match 1mo ago
      It really depends on how much you use it. If it's hours a day, you are a power user, and you'll learn the shortcuts. Otherwise it's annoying.
- marshray 1mo ago
  "Most users" are not who choose business software.
- kbelder 1mo ago
  Screwing with a keyboard combo in Excel... like Shift-Space to highlight a row... is like an IDE deciding to swap the key-bindings for '{' and '['. You'd have entire accounting and marketing departments in rebellion. Devs consistently underestimate how many power users of Excel there are, and often don't understand how they operate.
- kalleboo 1mo ago
  I got my wife a new MacBook Air, and figured there's no point in paying for MS Office, iWork is fine for the household stuff she needs it for. She loved Pages, being able to put images anywhere without stuff moving around behind her back. She hated Numbers, since there were no cut/copy/paste/undo buttons on the toolbar. This is someone who has been using Excel at work for decades at this point. Definitely had a sudden insight as to how differently many users work.
red_admiral 1mo ago
> UI constantly shuffling around between updates. and then 365 came along ... an option to pull stock market data here, a LinkedIn connection there, oh look a wild copilot button appeared.
IdiotSavage 1mo ago
> …and that means that users can input and navigate at light speed. Oh yeah? I remember when they introduced these shitty animations that made everything feel extremely laggy. From the article linked below: "Microsoft Excel now animates certain actions as you work. For instance, when you move from one cell to another, it animates the move. When you paste copied information, it animates the paste. Or when you enter a formula, it animates the calculation." https://www.adventuresincre.com/disable-animations-excel/ https://www.adventuresincre.com/disable-animations-excel/

NooneAtAll3 1mo ago

I think you vaaastly overestimate how excel is used by most users if anything, excel exceeds in being MOUSE-driven - it's intuitive in what you press and what you drag and that's kinda my problem with the TFA - author is not representative of typical user. Mouse interaction is the king

layer8 1mo ago
Maybe by most users, but not by most users who use it for many hours daily for professional tasks (i.e. not just as a kind of tabular list editor).
preg_match 1mo ago
Basically everyone in a white collar job who is NOT a developer is using Excel. I'm a developer, even I have to use Excel at work.
- NooneAtAll3 1mo ago
  that's exactly what I'm saying basically everyone uses Excel. And basically everyone is a MOUSE-first user (or, even further along the chain: TOUCHSCREEN-first) keyboard-based menu navigation is not intuitive. it can be "poweruser" oriented, but it's not for most of the userbase
  - rhdunn 1mo ago
    Keyboard shortcuts for those menu items are what most people will learn -- save, print, cut, copy, and paste will be the common ones that a lot of people will know. I'd be willing to bet that professional typists and people who spend the majority of their day typing (email, word, IDEs/text editors, etc.) are the ones who will know more keyboard shortcuts and navigation, especially for the things they do repeatedly.
    - danaris 1mo ago
      > Keyboard shortcuts for those menu items are what most people will learn -- save, print, cut, copy, and paste will be the common ones that a lot of people will know. I would say that it's true that the keyboard shortcuts for those items are the ones most likely for people to learn, but not true that most people will learn them. I've spent 15 years in (tech support/programming for) academia, working with genuinely very smart people who use computers every day of their life, many of whom are actively looking for better ways to use those computers in their teaching and research, and 9/10 of them go to the Edit menu for Copy and Paste every. single. time.
  - preg_match 1mo ago
    It really depends on how much you use it. If it's hours a day, you are a power user, and you'll learn the shortcuts. Otherwise it's annoying.
marshray 1mo ago
"Most users" are not who choose business software.
kbelder 1mo ago
Screwing with a keyboard combo in Excel... like Shift-Space to highlight a row... is like an IDE deciding to swap the key-bindings for '{' and '['. You'd have entire accounting and marketing departments in rebellion. Devs consistently underestimate how many power users of Excel there are, and often don't understand how they operate.
kalleboo 1mo ago
I got my wife a new MacBook Air, and figured there's no point in paying for MS Office, iWork is fine for the household stuff she needs it for. She loved Pages, being able to put images anywhere without stuff moving around behind her back. She hated Numbers, since there were no cut/copy/paste/undo buttons on the toolbar. This is someone who has been using Excel at work for decades at this point. Definitely had a sudden insight as to how differently many users work.

red_admiral 1mo ago

> UI constantly shuffling around between updates. and then 365 came along ... an option to pull stock market data here, a LinkedIn connection there, oh look a wild copilot button appeared.

IdiotSavage 1mo ago

> …and that means that users can input and navigate at light speed. Oh yeah? I remember when they introduced these shitty animations that made everything feel extremely laggy. From the article linked below: "Microsoft Excel now animates certain actions as you work. For instance, when you move from one cell to another, it animates the move. When you paste copied information, it animates the paste. Or when you enter a formula, it animates the calculation." https://www.adventuresincre.com/disable-animations-excel/ https://www.adventuresincre.com/disable-animations-excel/