Excel Is For Lists Not Formulas

Sure, you use Excel for all kinds of fancy calculations. Your workbooks are full of mega-formulas and user-defined functions. Your macros magically summarize the data, and you create monthly reports with the click of a button.

But what about the guy in the next cubicle? Does he use Excel for anything more than a grocery list?

Joel Spolsky on Excel

In his article, How Trello is different, Joel Spolsky, who was on the Excel development team, talks about the team’s concept of how Excel would be used. Then, they started visiting customers, and found a different story.

“Most Excel users never enter a formula. They use Excel when they need a table. The gridlines are the most important feature of Excel, not recalc.”

That sounds about right to me.

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