I recently went to a Power Pivot meet and greet. Why did I go? Well, to hand out business cards, of course. But I forgot to bring them.
I admit I'm curious about these much-ballyhooed Power Pivot features. But you have to understand where I'm coming from: I'm a VBA person. Pivot Tables (the non-powerful ones) have always struck me as somewhere between merely lazy and actual voodoo. I cannot say they are of the devil, but I cannot say they aren't, either. You probably wouldn't understand that if you're a pivot-table person, or spreadsheet person. But I'm a programmer, so I have a natural aversion to canned solutions. Any programmer over 40 years old would get that and anyone under 40 -- well, nevermind.
Anyway, and fortunately, I don't have much dealings with pivot tables. I associate them with business users, who are OK enough people, but aren't really programmers, if you know what I mean. But I also don't like the fact that I don't understand them (speaking of the pivot tables just now). So I thought about them one morning while shaving, and I decided that they are just gui-drag-and-drop-visual queries. That seemed to make sense -- after all, they take data and do aggregate things with it.
At the power pivot get-together, it struck me that PP must be some kind of spreadsheet-independent multi-dimensional pivot table. That seemed to make sense.
Today I had a few minutes so I decided to toy around with a pivot table (non-powerful) and cannot make any sense out of it. I don't like that feeling. So I thought I'd see if someone would explain them to me. Then maybe I might be more receptive to them.
And frankly I'm getting to the age where, look, if it works, even if it's canned, it might have an occasional use. In that sense I suppose I'm acquiescing to the hedgemony of OOP and MSFT and all that goes with it. Losing interest, really, but that's another thread on another forum.
Peace!
I admit I'm curious about these much-ballyhooed Power Pivot features. But you have to understand where I'm coming from: I'm a VBA person. Pivot Tables (the non-powerful ones) have always struck me as somewhere between merely lazy and actual voodoo. I cannot say they are of the devil, but I cannot say they aren't, either. You probably wouldn't understand that if you're a pivot-table person, or spreadsheet person. But I'm a programmer, so I have a natural aversion to canned solutions. Any programmer over 40 years old would get that and anyone under 40 -- well, nevermind.
Anyway, and fortunately, I don't have much dealings with pivot tables. I associate them with business users, who are OK enough people, but aren't really programmers, if you know what I mean. But I also don't like the fact that I don't understand them (speaking of the pivot tables just now). So I thought about them one morning while shaving, and I decided that they are just gui-drag-and-drop-visual queries. That seemed to make sense -- after all, they take data and do aggregate things with it.
At the power pivot get-together, it struck me that PP must be some kind of spreadsheet-independent multi-dimensional pivot table. That seemed to make sense.
Today I had a few minutes so I decided to toy around with a pivot table (non-powerful) and cannot make any sense out of it. I don't like that feeling. So I thought I'd see if someone would explain them to me. Then maybe I might be more receptive to them.
And frankly I'm getting to the age where, look, if it works, even if it's canned, it might have an occasional use. In that sense I suppose I'm acquiescing to the hedgemony of OOP and MSFT and all that goes with it. Losing interest, really, but that's another thread on another forum.
Peace!
