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Isn't it a bit silly to blame Excel for a user's typing 20,000 instead of 10,000? Computers can't magically come up with the right answer from wrong input. You

by gruseom 13y ago

Isn't it a bit silly to blame Excel for a user's typing 20,000 instead of 10,000? Computers can't magically come up with the right answer from wrong input. You could argue that there should have been error handling or data validation, but most custom software doesn't do that either.

DanBC 13y ago
I'm not singling out one spreadsheet package. I'm not even singling out spreadsheets - thus the link to Panko and "human errors". But fat-finger errors are very easy to make with spreadsheets, and very hard to find. This error, (20,000 instead of 10,000) was only found when LOCOG realised they didn't have enough seats for all the tickets they'd sold. Spreadsheets are particularly tricky because people scatter input data among all those cells; Sometimes data is manually copied and pasted (which can either update automatically with outher changes, or not, depending how it's cut and pasted); they then manipulate those cells with formulas (sometimes across multiple sheets) and then they spit out a number. Or sometimes not even a number but a bar on a chart. Few people bother looking at the input or at the formulas used, they just see the output and sometimes apply a brief sanity check. > You could argue that there should have been error handling or data validation, but most custom software doesn't do that either. Most people don't write custom software. Spreadsheets give people a very powerful tool. Most people don't have the skills to protect themselves from that power - they don't know about error handling or data validation and spreadsheets make it hard to provide those sanitation and checking tools.
- gruseom 13y ago
  My point about custom software might have been unclear. Here's what I meant. A one-off ticketing app is a classic example of software that would normally get developed either in a spreadsheet or as some custom app that a team would build for the occasion. Such custom apps are typically bad at data validation and error handling, so it's plausible that the same typo would have had the same effect outside of Excel. When I read that Eusprig literature on spreadsheet errors a few years ago, it seemed to me of rather low quality. Certainly many spreadsheets contain errors, but what are we comparing this to? Software in general contains errors. Custom app software—the only alternative to spreadsheets in most cases—tends to be of poor quality and is very expensive compared to spreadsheets. So it's far from clear that spreadsheets are a bad tradeoff. Programmers take it for granted that "proper" software is better than spreadsheets, but I think that is mostly bias. Intellectually and technically, spreadsheets are low-status. Among users, on the other hand, they're high-status, for very good and deep reasons. I'm also biased. I think that these problems need to be solved by innovation within the spreadsheet space itself.

by gruseom 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago

I'm not singling out one spreadsheet package. I'm not even singling out spreadsheets - thus the link to Panko and "human errors". But fat-finger errors are very easy to make with spreadsheets, and very hard to find. This error, (20,000 instead of 10,000) was only found when LOCOG realised they didn't have enough seats for all the tickets they'd sold. Spreadsheets are particularly tricky because people scatter input data among all those cells; Sometimes data is manually copied and pasted (which can either update automatically with outher changes, or not, depending how it's cut and pasted); they then manipulate those cells with formulas (sometimes across multiple sheets) and then they spit out a number. Or sometimes not even a number but a bar on a chart. Few people bother looking at the input or at the formulas used, they just see the output and sometimes apply a brief sanity check. > You could argue that there should have been error handling or data validation, but most custom software doesn't do that either. Most people don't write custom software. Spreadsheets give people a very powerful tool. Most people don't have the skills to protect themselves from that power - they don't know about error handling or data validation and spreadsheets make it hard to provide those sanitation and checking tools.

gruseom 13y ago
My point about custom software might have been unclear. Here's what I meant. A one-off ticketing app is a classic example of software that would normally get developed either in a spreadsheet or as some custom app that a team would build for the occasion. Such custom apps are typically bad at data validation and error handling, so it's plausible that the same typo would have had the same effect outside of Excel. When I read that Eusprig literature on spreadsheet errors a few years ago, it seemed to me of rather low quality. Certainly many spreadsheets contain errors, but what are we comparing this to? Software in general contains errors. Custom app software—the only alternative to spreadsheets in most cases—tends to be of poor quality and is very expensive compared to spreadsheets. So it's far from clear that spreadsheets are a bad tradeoff. Programmers take it for granted that "proper" software is better than spreadsheets, but I think that is mostly bias. Intellectually and technically, spreadsheets are low-status. Among users, on the other hand, they're high-status, for very good and deep reasons. I'm also biased. I think that these problems need to be solved by innovation within the spreadsheet space itself.