[tensor]

"Though I think of Jira more like a spreadsheet. Very useful once upon a time. Outdated now. Static. Manual."

This statement is so blatantly wrong that it actually put me off even reading the rest. Spreadsheets are stronger than they've ever been and are never going away, let alone being "outdated." Sure there are products that claim to be "the next spreadsheet" but most of those actually serve a different purpose: no-code app dev.

[GordonS]

Jira is a hot mess - I'm genuinely offended in behalf of spreadsheets that the OP would make that comparison.

[yodelshady]

Funny, from non-dev roles I'd probably put spreadsheets as the the platform for "no-code app dev".

Or rather, the platform for "this is the only b*d tool IT have allowed me to run, and no, I don't have a spare year for them to scope out what could be bodged by a couple of VBA scripts, and doing so would very obviously make my job better. So, for good or evil, it's going to be bodged with a couple of VBA scripts."

I feel like there's a lesson there, though I could be wrong. (Also not sure if that counts as "no-code")

Oh, and seconding the general consensus that websites that flash irrelevant notifications at me are pretty much an instant, hard "no".

[dijit]

Never underestimate the art of the bodge, it's quite literally keeping the world ticking over, perfection has a place but it is rare and fleeting.

I saw a good talk on it from Tom Scott some time ago[0] which I think is relevant.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIFE7h3m40U

[hector_vasquez]

I assumed the author really meant that using a spreadsheet for project tracking is outdated, static, and manual. Which I agree with. But spreadsheets in general of course are tremendously useful!

[xmprt]

I've seen spreadsheets used for project tracking and in general I think they're versatile enough that they're useful tools. What's a better alternative? Jira and other proprietary solutions sound good in theory but I feel like in practice they're just expensive and time consuming since developers and managers need to learn a new tool that might not even have the features you're looking for.

[tmountain]

I agree. Spreadsheets are an incredible tool that have stood the test of time. Taking that declaration one sentence farther, they are one of the greatest success stories regarding bringing functional programming into the business world in a way that emphasizes simplicity.

[sufyanadam]

Pro-tip for engineers on spreadsheets: Org-mode & emacs is a great tool for the random spreadsheet you might want to scratch out to compare something or get some running totals or do cost-benefit analysis or whatever. Check out https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-spreadsheet-lisp-... and https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/org.html...

I recently used it to find out how much a certain company owes me based on a monthly guarantee obligation they have continuously fallen short of . I've also used it to do comparisons and find out the maximum I can save on a refinance from different lenders etc, whether I should lease or purchase a car etc.. Very useful!

[commandlinefan]

I think he means a spreadsheet for the purposes of tracking software project progress. Although honestly, if you have a spreadsheet that's longer-lived than a few hours, you should probably evaluate whether you're adopting the best approach.

[MattGaiser]

If you are not a developer, spreadsheets are a tool that lets you get similar capability in many cases. It is basically no-code for accountants, portfolio managers, and non software engineers.

[commandlinefan]

Cool. If you have a spreadsheet that's longer-lived than a few hours, you should probably evaluate whether you're adopting the best approach. You can replace a blown fuse with a penny, too, but you should probably call an electrician instead.

[xmprt]

Building/buying a new tool for a job that a spreadsheet can do just as easily because of your hard rule on long-lived spreadsheets feels like a huge waste of company resources.

Your penny analogy is contrived because a penny isn't remotely close to working like a fuse and a mistake can be deadly. No one is going to die if you use a spreadsheet instead of Jira for project tracking.

[httpsterio]

> Cool. If you have a spreadsheet that's longer-lived than a few hours, you should probably evaluate whether you're adopting the best approach. You can replace a blown fuse with a penny, too, but you should probably call an electrician instead.

or just replace the fuse with a fuse? If you have a spreadsheet and it works for you, why spend time getting a programmer to "do it properly"?

one of the largest Finnish waste disposal companies has a no-code product that runs in excel basically and rakes them millions a year.

[pillefitz]

Excel + VBA is insanely powerful, and except for the IDE a surprisingly good dev experience. I would have never thought if I my client hadn't insisted..

[killface]

I'm convinced that every single business out there eventually gets run from an Excel spreadsheet. At the end of the day, they're just rolling up rollups all the way to the top, where some guy is looking at Scenario A vs Scenario B in Excel

[uchman]

Yea spreadsheets were useful before and even more useful now. Agreed, they could be misused but what can't be misused ?

[yishaibeeri]

Everything can be misused, but abusing spreadsheets is an art form

[modeless]

I read this as talking about a specific spreadsheet, not the general concept of spreadsheets. Like a specific excel file someone made long ago but it hasn't been updated in a long time and it's difficult to figure out if its up to date or not. It could be worded better.

[pm90]

If you’re going to make judgements so easily you’re going to miss out on a lot of good ideas that people put out there.

[nine_k]

Such a beginning does set some expectations of competence, unfortunately :(

[Clubber]

I would say 90% of tech ideas that area floated out there are awful and I'm being pretty generous with that number.

[loeg]

I also tripped on this sentence. But the article is not bad if you charitably read "spreadsheet" as "spreadsheets for bug/project tracking."