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by simonw 736 days ago
You may be shocked to learn how much of the world's "important data" lives in Excel files.
3 comments

A lot of world’s important data is on paper.

As far as important data served from a relational database is concerned, MySQL most likely beats the hell out of everything in terms of popularity. The bulk of SQLite’s usage has to be various runtime caches, file data, and so on.

Postgresql superseded mysql ever since the maria fork/oracle acquisition.
The topic is not quality but popularity.
Yes. In terms of popularity (installs/time) psql superseded mysql. Although of course at the tipover point msql still may have beaten psql in terms of total installations, i'm pretty sure even by that metric psql already won.
Source? I’ve only been using PostgreSQL, but I believe most legaxy systems are not going to rush to update, and world consists of legacy systems and systems that will become legacy tomorrow.
I'm the source

we have been living in a psql era for longer than mysql, so it has had enough time to catchup.

If you feel otherwise it's probably that memory bias effect where distant events seem closer and we underestimate the passage of time,

There's an xkcd for that

https://xkcd.com/891/

"The death of mysql(2010) is closer to its birth(1995) than to the present (2025)" will become a true statement next year.

Fun fact: my (french) company audited the french navy and found out they share important nuclear submarine maintenance data as excel files through email.
Former US military officer here. This does not surprise me at all. I wasn’t in subs but we absolutely did this for maintenance of other multimillion dollar assets.
Microsoft is in so many government offices around the world it's not even funny.
I’m certain MS is in all government offices almost globally, except that one municipality in Germany that keeps attempting a Linux transition every other year.
Not shocked, not a problem.

Easier to copy/replicate, packaged with a GUI, provider with a commercial relationship, programmatic support ( formulas, vba, COM, raw data access)

Would be closer to sqlite than server side though, but it's capacity for replication and sharing makes it more adecuate for sqlite.

Sqlite's lack of GUI gives data a programmer bias, important data uses excel because unless you are in a technocratic environment.

There's quite a few guis available, eg here's mine: https://www.timestored.com/qstudio/database/sqlite You raise an interesting idea. What if sqlite database s has also been .exe executable to give at least a cli. That would have been interesting, similar to redhead.