[jakehop]

You’re missing the point. If your sales tracking alone takes up 16GB of RAM on the client, that isn’t scalable - and potentially a horrible experience to work with. Your point is correct in the single case, but I think we’re discussing beyond that.

[Robotbeat]

Excel is a lot more scalable than doing it by hand. I think the point that Excel--even with its poorly scalable performance--has made programming ridiculously accessible in extremely valuable ways is spot on. In fact, it has creates unending market demand for software engineers--customers invent their own apps (in Excel), prove it out in the real world gaining revenue all the way until it slows due to scaling issues, and software engineers just need to rewrite it for them in a scalable environment. It seems pretty optimal to me.

[wangxiaofeng]

agreed!