I think it’s a hole in education. Unless you go to school for IT or programming the most advanced thing you’re probably going to be taught is spreadsheet, and yet out in the world of business you need actual database software, and Excel can kinda sorta look like it’s somewhat accomplishing that for a while so that’s what gets used.
When the only tool society has been taught exists is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Sometimes I want a more free-form tool that can be a journal or a checklist or a spreadsheet so that I can plan and calculate and such. My personal journal sometimes reads like The Martian, “Okay, my solar panels make 165 kilowatt hours per sol, and I need 47 of it for my project, meaning I have 108 kilowatt hours per sol left over…” But I look at things like OneNote and fall right off them.
Look, if Excel is the last mile and everyone is properly plugged into a corporate database to pull numbers, then great.
But way too many companies manage everything from a network share full of xlsx files…
I think it’s a hole in education. Unless you go to school for IT or programming the most advanced thing you’re probably going to be taught is spreadsheet, and yet out in the world of business you need actual database software, and Excel can kinda sorta look like it’s somewhat accomplishing that for a while so that’s what gets used.
When the only tool society has been taught exists is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
One of my seniors uses xls as a word processor. I screamed but Teams was on mute.
As in, would type up a memo in Excel? Woof.
Sometimes I want a more free-form tool that can be a journal or a checklist or a spreadsheet so that I can plan and calculate and such. My personal journal sometimes reads like The Martian, “Okay, my solar panels make 165 kilowatt hours per sol, and I need 47 of it for my project, meaning I have 108 kilowatt hours per sol left over…” But I look at things like OneNote and fall right off them.