Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dgudkov 1242 days ago
Small databases aren't popular because Excel spreadsheets already occupy that niche. A small database doesn't have to be normalized. Because it's small, it can be denormalized into a flat table that can be conveniently handled in Excel.
1 comments
FridgeSeal 1242 days ago
That’s not really analogous and kind of misses some of the other aspects the author talks about.

Excel doesn’t cover the publishing and discovery aspect. It is absolutely atrocious from a machine usability and schema perspective, nevermind performance, etc.

Even if you think excel does address those, I think the shortcomings of the format should rule it out. It is better to have a more powerful tool, and fix the usability aspects, rather than trying to proverbially rub glitter on what amounts to a turd of a format.

link
omnipath 1242 days ago
Yeah, but I think you're underestimating what the grandparent post is saying. The people who would PAY for some of these functions are already making do with Excel. And microsoft has responded in kind by increasing Excel's ability to do, well, everything. I'm pretty sure if someone wanted to include those features the article is talking about on top of Excel, they would. Just last week, we saw someone add onto Excel a C# IDE with debugger, and posted about it here. It seems one's limit with Excel is only one's imagination.
link
FridgeSeal 1240 days ago
And PowerPoint is Turing complete, so I guess we may as well just throw away all these other programming languages and use that going forward because lots of people already use PowerPoint?

Excel as a format is an awful abomination of XML, and the program itself is an awful experience that people just stick with due to a mix of Stockholm syndrome and inertia. It’s not exactly something I would ever want to “aim for”.

link
omnipath 1236 days ago
"Excel as a format is an awful abomination of XML"

You and I may think so, but why would it matter for the end user?

"and the program itself is an awful experience that people just stick with due to a mix of Stockholm syndrome and inertia"

Disagree. For the purpose of what Excel was made for, it seems reasonable. Or rather, I've yet to see what benefits alternative experiences produce. For the vast 90% of users, Excel is a 1NF/2NF db, emphasized on visually viewing their data. It's dead simple to enter, dead simple to share, and reasonable easy to add some constraints, some linkage, and show data trends.

link