Is excel a spreadsheet application or a database program - is there a difference?

[RichP]

Hi there,
Think this is the right place to post this question, please move elsewhere if I'm wrong, but I'm turning to you in the hope you might be able to clear up a debate in the office for me.
The question is whether Excel (and spreadsheet programs in general) are databases or applications. I am not a great expert in computer/software theory, but thanks to you guys I know my way round excel, so I would like to be able to uphold my position that it is a calculation application which can be used for certain DB functionality, but in and of itself, it is not a database. I am using as my argument the history of electronic spreasheets being developed as visual calculators, and the way that you work with Excel, and for example Access (calculations, rows/columns, etc), being so different.
Do I win, or do I have to concede gracefully?
Thanks,
R

 

[Domski]

I'd say you are correct. There's nothing to stop you building a database in Excel but essentially it's nothing like Access in the way it functions or stores data. Access has the inbuilt functionality that Excel lacks with regards to setting up data tables and the relationships between them. It does have the ability to query database tables using Pivot tables and other features but this in itself doesn't make it a database application.

Dom

 

[RoryA]

Ask whomever you are arguing with to define the term 'database'!

 

[SydneyGeek]

Yep, Excel can be a database... of sorts. the difference (as Dom has pointed out) is that Excel is not a relational database, and that's what people usually mean when they refer to a database. If you go to Tushar Mehta's site you will see a great tutorial on how to make Excel behave like a database but, out of the box, a database application it ain't

Denis