This doesn’t sound like an Excel problem it sounds like a management/software upkeep/bus factor problem.
I’m going to be the odd man out and say that Excel isn’t even that bad: I use it a lot for RPG simulations and engineering simulations, and not just because CSV is normalized. It can be part of the tech stack, but not in a mission critical way. There’s really no tool like it especially if you are doing simulations.
100%, excel is great for spreadsheets and garbage as a database, yet so many people keep using it as a database. I’m currently pushing for my department to transition their many “excel databases” to proper databases and I’m getting mass surprised Pikachu face because no one else knows they’re not the same.
Indeed, I’m pushing for SQL but work in a field that sees Excel as a huge improvement over past practices. They’re about one step removed from writing on toilet paper.
My original career was in a much more data intensive field, so I’ve become “that guy” regarding proper data storage and hygiene. Case in point: we sit directly next to IT. Every time we talk about data collection, I’ll get up on my SQL soap box and one of the IT folks will let out a comical groan.
If you’re working with csv data, www.visidata.org >>>>> excel (assuming you’re comfortable with terminal UIs, anyway). You can very rapidly slice and dice data and for formulas and such, you can just write Python.
Pretty sure every professional CAD software has interfaces for external parts, which can then trigger an analysis in accounting for parts not on storage.
Pretty much all data heavy organisations use excel VERY heavily. And when nobody understands the model within them any more, they need retiring and are usually replaced with… Excel! This time with even more tabs and columns. To replace these things with computer models risks repeating the same problem the original sheet has: bus factors and complexities are hard, more so even in python/r than excel sadly. Maybe one day something will trump it, but that day is not today
Supply chain management software exists. Do they meet f1 demands? Doubtful, but this is why you partner with a software company. They add more, you pay less, and give them some good sponsorship
Yup. And extra extra, excel can be beaten for specific examples with lots of extra tooling. But you know what that tooling will also do? Generate excel reports
I do this for a living. I’ve spent basically my whole career (15 years full time professional at this stage) basically trying to kill excel. You can’t, or at least I can’t. You can add processes to it, you can programmatically read/write from it, but when it comes down to ditching it: every stakeholder is invested in excel. No other piece of office has the staying power that excel has, it will outlast us all
I suspect slightly more useful than a cockroach. Believe it or not, it’s actually good at what it does. That’s why it’s still here. And also why I’m in a job, as there are plenty of things it shouldn’t be doing too
Because the tech-illiterate people who have authority only know “productivity” tools and couldn’t care less about the opinions of the people who actually know what they’re doing.
I disagree. It’s way more that they aren’t hiring the right people to do the job. I’ve been asked to do some analysis, but the only tool I know how to use is Excel so that’s what I use to answer the mail. If I had access to a database person to help me build a better tool I’d be happy to not use Excel. But I don’t so I do what I can to do my job.
It’s surely a nightmare for long term usage but is there a software that can beat the functional reactive sort of auto updates when using spreadsheets with a few thousand rows of data? I’d have to actually use my brain to do the same thing as a pivot table in an array programming language.
Any sort of actual database will let you do it. SQL based the obvious answer, but they are all way harder to use than they should be. SQLite never got anything as good as excel sadly, and parquet still lacks a decent windows client. The WYSIWYG of excel really is so intuitive, nothing I know matches it
Version control for any kind of code can be done with git if that’s what you are asking. There are other systems available too but that’s the standard for most things now.
Pretty sure someone or even several people had that problem pointed out for years - and the management didn’t care for those “negativlings” and ignored the problem.
The team was just heavily under funded when it was still managed by the Williams family. There was no money to change anything. Former drivers that have visited the factory have all told that it felt like they had traveled back in time, everything is outdated at the Williams factory. They were stuck in a downward spiral. They couldn’t build a fast car to get into the points because of the outdated factory, which meant they didn’t get a lot of prize money and also couldn’t attract enough sponsorship money. Thus they didn’t have the money to improve the car for the next season. When the team was sold to an investor group they finally got enough funds to turn this sinking ship around.
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