Why does everybody hate Excel?

[hellfire45]

In the last 5 years of working with Excel and VBA, I have numerous times run across people who flat out seem to dismiss the utility of using Excel, sometimes entirely.

I hear things like:

"Excel isn't robust, we have to put it in SAP, Alteryx, Access etc.."

"VBA doesn't add value to the end user."

"VBA and Excel isn't programming."

"Excel workbooks are too slow."



Everybody seems to reject Excel first as a potential solution to problems. I have 100 page long VBA programs that do hundreds out hours of manual work in 10 minutes and when I write an excel formula that has 25 nested functions in it, surely that too is programming.

Anybody else run into this kind of attitude and feel frustrated by it? As an analyst that primarily uses Excel and Tableau it is frustrating when an automation I create in Excel is easily dismissed, even after completion, in favor of virtually any alternative.

When I create an automation in 2 weeks that does a variety of things and then the IT department insists that it be put into SAP, and it takes them a month to even complete the scoping session I think to myself "hmm...Excel doesn't look so bad now for its versatility, flexibility and speed of implementation."

Thoughts?

 

[Joe4]

"VBA doesn't add value to the end user."

It doesn't need to. Do users understand the programming language behind every single software program they use? If it is written well, they never need to touch or see the VBA code.

"VBA and Excel isn't programming."

This just shows the ignorance of the people making these comments. VBA is programming. You can create fully automated applications using Excel and VBA that run without any human interaction.

"Excel workbooks are too slow."

They can be, if not written well, too much data is stored in them, or if Excel is being used for something that would be better off in another program.

A good example of my last comment is that I have seen Excel used as a database program with a lot data in it.
Can it do it? Sure!
Is it efficient? No!
Is it the best program to use for a database program? Definitely not! Database programs like Access, SQL, and Oracle were designed for this very purpose.

Like anything else, Excel is a tool. It does many things very well, and other things not so well. They key question to ask is "Is Excel the right tool for the job?".
Someone one said, you could probably drive nails with a wrench, but why would you do that if you have a hammer at your disposal? Pick the right tool for the job, whenever possible.

Sometimes, it comes down to what you have available to you. I have seen many questions on this forum where people are trying to do simple database tasks which Access can do with ease, but are very cumbersome in Excel. Unfortunately, many times it comes down to the fact that they are not able to use Access, so they are stuck using Excel. Not ideal, but that is often the reality of the business world.

 

[Arachnyd]

Same reason why people reject a Mazda Miata as a race car.

Its cheap, easy to access, and 99.9% of the people who use it don't know how to use it to its full potential.
If "normal" people use it, it can't be robust enough for complex tasks!

We've done some cool things in excel that we were told by high level IT individuals that they can't be done without some complex system... and we get it done in like a week.


(The Mazda Miata is one of the top performing race cars available despite its low cost)

 

[RickXL]

I can see this from both sides.

Certainly, Excel is a very capable tool. There is an awful amount of functionality in there and because it can link to other things its bounds extend beyond any fixed description that you might find.

I used to use SAS as a reporting tool. One day I mocked up a report in SAS to get approval to proceed to write it in PL/1. I produced two iterations of a fully working mock up before lunch and it took me another five days to get it working in PL/1. Excel is a bit like SAS in that respect. If you want to do what it is good at then it can very quickly produce results.

However, professional programmers often have a different view of life. If an application has built-in limits then that acts as a red light and some will tend to shy away from it. Now Excel has a row limit of 1048576 it is so much more useful than the old 65536 rows but what happens if you need 1.1 million rows? You now start having to code to get round the system limits.

You mentioned SAP, I used to use that as well. Ours was based on Oracle and we had many tables with row numbers well into 9 digits. We only needed to put one version of any program into production and all users could use it. That is much harder with Excel. You need to roll out workbooks to lists of servers. Then you get problems when the users are running different versions of Excel. If the data needs sharing then there are problems.

If you have used features in Visual Basic like Array Lists or Sorted Lists you discover that Excel does not have all the same functionality. Some of it is missing. Some of the Object Oriented features you might expect are not there either. There are inconsistencies between Worksheet formulas and VBA ones. Names are different and dates are not exactly the same, for instance. It has all kinds of little quirks.

Like all software, it has certain capabilities and limitations. If you need a new driver for your graphics card then Excel will not be much use. The same applies if you need a database with a billion rows or one that has 10,000 users. On the other hand, there will be times when it will be hard to beat. Horses for courses is the motto.


Regards,

 

[Joe4]

Also, regarding your title "Why does everybody hate Excel?", I am guessing you were just using hyperbole to make a point.
In my experience, most people like Excel (well, most anyone who is not techno-phobic). I have only come across a few who didn't.

In the tech world, I have come across many more people who have an issue with Access than Excel. They often look down on it and say it is "not a real database program", because it is not as robust as programs like SQL or Oracle. It is just a tool, like anything else, and serves a need/purpose. Use it for what it was intended for, and you usually won't have too many issues. It is actually used as a front-end for SQL a lot, as SQL does not have its own front-end for easy GUI access.

 

[RoryA]

In the tech world, I have come across many more people who have an issue with Access than Excel. They often look down on it and say it is "not a real database program"

Totally agree with this. The additional issue being that many IT departments actively hate Access because there are so many important databases spread around the company, over which they have no control and quite often don't even know of their existence until something goes wrong.

 

[RickXL]

My issue with Access is that it is neither one thing nor the other.

It is not simple enough for the average computer user and it is not robust enough for professional use. Conversely, if people could understand Access then I believe that they would make better use of Excel. We get many Excel problems in this forum which would not have been problems if people had based their design on the "third normal form" they would have been coerced to use in Access. Think of all those people with data across Worksheets or Workbooks that now want to combine it into one Worksheet - or vice versa.

I still remember my boss from many years ago. He had a classic spreadsheet with categories and years down the side and months across the top. Everything was going well until he was asked to perform a selection that was a whole number of years but starting in July. What could have been a straight application of AutoFilter now became a lot more difficult.

 

[Joe4]

My issue with Access is that it is neither one thing nor the other.

It is not simple enough for the average computer user and it is not robust enough for professional use.

Can't say that I agree with that entirely.
Would I put a big important database on it? NO (at least not the back-end).
But there are many things we have found it quite useful for, such as:

1. Using the Unmatched Query Wizard to compare two lists of data (sure beats doing tens of thousands of VLOOKUPs), and the wizard is easy enough for the average user to learn (I have taught a few people in my day).
2. Use as a tool to quickly re-format data. At my last job, we got lots of data file in the wrong format. I developed Access databases to quickly convert the files into the correct format, and produce a series of reports based on the data.
3. Develop a quick front-end to an existing SQL database

One of the first programs I created in Access at my previous job was a billing/invoicing database in Access. Over the years, they invested in a SQL server and moved the back-end to SQL, but the front-end is still in Access (to this day).

Back in the day, I also really stretched its limits and created a program that took data and converted it into dynamic participant statements (of an unknown number of pages), complete with page numbers and bar codes. It was a bit clunky, but at the time we really didn't have access to any other tools other than the Microsoft Suite products, and it got the job done.

And most of the people who use the applications I built have no idea that they are even using Access. Everything is form driven.

Probably one of the biggest weaknesses is security (or lack there-of), though Excel is not much better.

The point is, Access is more powerful than many people think. Obviously, if you have more robust options, you probably want to use those, but I have found it to be a handy tool to get some database tasks or other tasks completed quickly.

 

[ttray33y]

I dont maybe some, but me? well the application is not perfect but it really is useful as it meant to do, it depends on your requirement.
the only application i hated the most is adobe acrobat pro, expensive useless piece of garbage IMHO

 

[BobbyDrus]

When I was in University back in the early 2000's I was forced to take a MS Office course. I skimmed it doing only what was needed because my view of Excel was it was a waste of time. I could use so many programming languages to do so much more than I could with excel, and I felt I could do it faster.

Fast forward a few years I am working as a sales person traveling extensively getting excel documents in my inbox every morning to look over, I later cursed my distaste for excel and wished I spent more time with it.

Today I use Excel all the time, mostly simple tasks, I still consider myself a noob, but am often the go to guy for excel questions. Excel is that program that people think they are too good for until they realize Excel is so useful for so many tasks.