> "It almost seems like Excel's designers worked really hard to come up with a user interface that would make introducing errors trivial and noticing errors very hard."
Or, rather, Excel's designers spent very little time and effort into support for non-trivial formula creation and use.
But, if we all seem to agree that Excel is not the place for serious calculations, can we fairly continue to take shots at Excel for being bad at supporting them?
i.e. When I see people maintain non-trivial web apps by opening notepad against production code, it never occurs to me to complain that notepad should have syntax highlighting, collaboration and version management, etc.
I actually feel bad for the Excel devs. In my friend's experience, the relatively modern features that MS introduced into Excel like named cell references were deliberately avoided because they smacked of "programming" and "made things too complicated"...so it seems like the Excel guys lose no matter what.
But with something like making the formula editor reasonable, I think they do have some blame. Excel costs a heck of a lot more than notepad and it is billed as being a serious tool for professionals to use.
Or, rather, Excel's designers spent very little time and effort into support for non-trivial formula creation and use.
But, if we all seem to agree that Excel is not the place for serious calculations, can we fairly continue to take shots at Excel for being bad at supporting them?
i.e. When I see people maintain non-trivial web apps by opening notepad against production code, it never occurs to me to complain that notepad should have syntax highlighting, collaboration and version management, etc.