Re: The enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel

On 2024-10-28, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2024-10-28 12:48 p.m., DFS wrote:

On 10/28/2024 11:19 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:

On 2024-10-28 10:24 a.m., DFS wrote:

"‘I grew up with it’: readers on the enduring appeal of Microsoft Excel
>
 From baby names to wedding planning, fans of the 40-year-old
spreadsheet program reveal how it has transformed their lives"
>
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/28/microsoft-excel-spreadsheet-program-40-years
>
>
MS is doomed.

>
Others will grow up with Calc...

 
 
I pity the fools...

>
People only think Excel is better if they're aware of its existence. My
students' lack of awareness seems to represent the greater society: they
don't know what they're using, they just know that it does spreadsheets.
If manufacturers were to bundle LibreOffice rather than Microsoft
Office, only a few would even notice that it's not the same thing.

In the mid-2000s a regional print shop I worked for moved from Microsoft
Office to OpenOffice (LibreOffice wasn't around yet). My main use for Excel
was taking crappy (poorly designed and updated) address spreadsheets and
converting them to usable dBASE databases for our address correction
software and our address labeling machine.

There was almost no difference between using Excel vs Calc even back then.
But why anyone would use a spreadsheet for a job better suited to a database
is still a mystery to me.

--
“Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy
what has been invented or made by the forces of good.”  —J.R.R. Tolkien