OK, I'll bite: You mention Excel and why people might object? It is because you also mention the need for versioning, diffing, and good debug abilities in other topics -all of which spreadsheets are terrible at.
Is that equation replicated for the whole of that row? Is that graph for the whole of the table? Has someone edited a value? Is that the current template? The manager said they only changed the header format but now...
Learn enough Excel to replace it with more programmatic tools like Pandas.
In my 20 years if experience, there are business needs that have to be met and the business cannot wait for IT to find a solution. Software (in the loosest sense) will get written, the only question is whether IT are involved and there is source control, versioning, documentation etc. When the business writes software, it uses Excel, so you better know how to dissect the mess you are about to inherit.
Hello @paddy3118
, you have a point but for more general uses like VLOOKUP, applying some formulas, converting list to CSV, some graph to show performance result, Excel is perfect tool. I agree that it's not for a serious stuff but if you use it as tools, its very handy.
Try and keep Excel on the output periphery. You give someone an output that they may choose to load into Excel, but never use Excel in the flow itself, as it is so hard to recognise problems under that slick GUI.
P.S. I should point out that I failed to praise all the good points you made.☺️
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OK, I'll bite: You mention Excel and why people might object? It is because you also mention the need for versioning, diffing, and good debug abilities in other topics -all of which spreadsheets are terrible at.
Is that equation replicated for the whole of that row? Is that graph for the whole of the table? Has someone edited a value? Is that the current template? The manager said they only changed the header format but now...
Learn enough Excel to replace it with more programmatic tools like Pandas.
In my 20 years if experience, there are business needs that have to be met and the business cannot wait for IT to find a solution. Software (in the loosest sense) will get written, the only question is whether IT are involved and there is source control, versioning, documentation etc. When the business writes software, it uses Excel, so you better know how to dissect the mess you are about to inherit.
But try not to prolong the agony. If they have asked a programmer to look at it, then, as a professional, you need to emphasise the risks.
Hello @paddy3118 , you have a point but for more general uses like VLOOKUP, applying some formulas, converting list to CSV, some graph to show performance result, Excel is perfect tool. I agree that it's not for a serious stuff but if you use it as tools, its very handy.
Try and keep Excel on the output periphery. You give someone an output that they may choose to load into Excel, but never use Excel in the flow itself, as it is so hard to recognise problems under that slick GUI.
P.S. I should point out that I failed to praise all the good points you made.☺️