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How many of us do actually excel? As someone who never was familiar with the windows or UI world of things I usually solve my excel issues with code.


I do, and it IS powerful, but lots of the things that it's really good at in a finance context I tend to solve with SQL. But that's because I am -- or used to be -- a programmer.

If you've never programmed, "just use SQL" is super daunting. OTOH, Excel gives you access to that kind of data query power without writing code, and the people who are good at it can do pretty amazing things with it. It's a different way of solving that problem.

It's a powerful tool, and it's a well-built one (again, it pains me to say, bc I grew up hating MSFT). If you're on a platform that has access to a native app, exploring it can actually be fun.


My point is it's a niche product. It's something only a few people actually need and use and something that has plenty of 'more powerful' alternatives.

It's not something most people would choose their operating system for.


I'm not sure I consider interoperable spreadsheets a "niche" product at all. It's a key consideration for huge chunks of the Fortune 500, for example.

Just because the average HN poster doesn't interact with these people from their tech silo doesn't mean they don't exist.

And yeah, there's a real history in computing of spreadsheets literally driving platform adoption.




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