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by dragonwriter 1811 days ago
> Just look at what your average person is able to accomplish with Excel.

Approximately nothing.

The average knowledge worker somewhat more, but lots of them are at the level of “I can consume a pivot table someone else set up”.

Sure, there are highly-productive, highly-skilled excel users that aren't traditional developers that can build great things, but they aren’t “your average person”.
2 comments
toomuchtodo 1811 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24791017 (HN: Excel warriors who save governments and companies from spreadsheet errors)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26386419 (HN: Excel Never Dies)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20417967 (HN: I was wrong about spreadsheets)

https://mobile.twitter.com/amitranjan/status/113944938807223... (Excel is every #SAAS company's biggest competitor!)

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dragonwriter 1811 days ago
Yes, Excel “runs the world”, and in most organizations, you’ll find a fairly narrow slice of Excel power users that build and maintain the Excel that “runs the world”.

We may not call them developers or programmers (or we might; I’ve been one of them as a fraction of my job at different times, both as a “fiscal analyst” by working title and as a “programmer analyst” by title), but effectively that's what they are, developers using (and possibly exclusively comfortable with) Excel as a platform.

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foobarbazetc 1811 days ago
Well, agree to disagree here as I’ve seen it with my own eyes, but it’s kind of besides the point.

Is it a coincidence that the same company that makes Excel is trying to… “democratize” and/or de-specialize programming?

I don’t really think so, but shrug.

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