[_dain_]

>I mean, isn't this just a button that adds some named ranges for you?

No, named ranges don't automatically expand when you add new rows, and they aren't automatically created when you add new columns. And they don't remain in groups, e.g. you can't make a reference like Namedrange1:Namedrange3, but in a table you can do Column1:Column3. Named ranges exist in a global namespace; column references exist in a per-table namespace. The table syntax makes columnwise operations clearer to express in formulae. Let's say you want to refer to the cell in the same row as the current cell, but in a different column: how do you do that if everything is just a named range? You need to do some kind of juggling with indexing and lookups, or else fall back to alphabet soup A1/R1C1 style referencing, because a named range is only good if you want to do an operation on every cell in the range. But that's often not what you want! In tables it's as simple as [@[other column]].

You would know this if you actually read the documentation or watched the video I posted. Or I could just repeat myself again (maybe I will write a macro to automate such tedium).

>Similarly, if you think there is something that "Power Query" can do that SQL cannot, then please show that.

Grab data from a csv file, a JSON file, a SQL database, and an Excel sheet, and combine them all together using a normie-friendly GUI.

Your question doesn't even make sense, it's like a type error. SQL and PowerQuery are not competing technologies, they're complementary.

>You could even write a quick macro in that generates the named ranges from column headers with one keystroke, it would be really trivial.

Yeah and you can also make Dropbox by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.

Spreadsheets are the only remaining programming system that people not inducted into the Programming Cult use.

[taviso]

I'm happy that you like this syntax, but the claim you made was "no you fucking well cannot [do everything]", not "excel syntax is more fucking beautiful".

I appreciate your advice, but I don't need to watch a video on R1C1 syntax, I literally maintain a spreadsheet :)

It seems like your real claim is that you really like the way Excel does it, nobody can argue with that.

[snthpy]

I have to agree with the OP (_dain_) here. Excel has evolved a lot in the last few years, first the whole Power Query and Power Pivot revolution and now all the functional stuff brought on by Simon Peyton-Jones and his crew like LET expressions and the functional constructs like LAMBDA, MAP, FILTER, ...

There's very little you can't do neatly and efficiently in Excel anymore. Yes you can in principle do those same things in Google Shets, but at what cost of readability?

I don't think it's worth spending much time getting into these arguments because the people arguing against Excel clearly don't know modern Excel very well.

[taviso]

> I don't think it's worth spending much time getting into these arguments because the people arguing against Excel clearly don't know modern Excel very well.

That's not it at all. Excel has been in active development for over 30 years by a multi-trillion dollar development powerhouse with billions of sales, everybody is aware it's a perfectly competent product.

The dispute is the objective claim that it can do something that alternatives cannot, not the subjective claim that Excel is "neater", or more beautiful, or more user friendly. After 30 years of active development I would hope that Excel has some shortcuts, polish and syntax improvements to streamline common operations. That is not the same as not being able to do something.

I question the claim that it can do something unique, and want to hear an example. When pushed for an example I'm told that only Excel has a Solver, or only Excel has Pivot Tables. That is objectively false.

I don't want to hear about "Power Query" unless it's an example query that cannot be done in SQL. It's a proprietary query language, of course alternatives don't have it. I'm glad you're happy about it, but others might call that "Vendor Lock-in".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in