Comments on: Does Excel “Suck”?

By: George Story

George Story — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:29:03 +0000

I have used Excel as an application development platform since Excel 3.0.
(How does 20 years go by so quickly?)
The National Ocean Service has many thousands of lines of vba code in production. The functions that Excel adds have served us well for plotting, displaying and editing our data products. With the release of Office 2007, I have begun a move to migrate away from Microsoft products all together for application development. I feel that they have decided that they are not going to support the Office platform for development. We are moving on.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:55:00 +0000

Will -

This inconvenience keeps me in business, but sometimes I still find it aggravating.

By: Will Dwinnell

Will Dwinnell — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:58:24 +0000

I agree that Excel can do many useful things, but it sure doesn’t make it convenient.

By: Q1 2009 Wrap up - Code For Excel And Outlook Blog

Q1 2009 Wrap up - Code For Excel And Outlook Blog — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:20:39 +0000

[...] Peltier — follow the fascinating Does Excel Suck [...]

By: sam

sam — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:35:59 +0000

I think the “excel sucks” comment is a result of a gap between expectations and supply.

People who hate excel do so not because they dont like the product but because they realise that there is so much scope for improvement….some of which is so obvious to them but not to MS….

After 2003 almost every one expected the next version to be revolutionary…with all the “known issues” to be sorted… and a host of improvements in “features” and large number of “power formulas”…..instead all we got was more colors and a reorganized, difficult to customize UI…

Once you realise that Excel is a monopoly and till there is a substantial loss of market share it is not likely to improve further.. the expectation reduces and you learn to live with what you have…

By: Abhishek Tiwari

Abhishek Tiwari — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:02:19 +0000

Nice article, and great communication between blog writer and reader. I love these kind of blogs where blogger have real balanced answer to the problems. Chad Orzel’s opinion is very much one sided, if you just want to criticize anything then off course there nothing which is not faulty- that includes R too.

By: Peter Jung

Peter Jung — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:56:55 +0000

Jon, thanks for the link to perceptualedge. This is a great new resource for me. Naomi, you have some very insightful work there. I also noticed one of Stephen’s blog posts from last year made the same point I made, applying a principle from an economics book to charting software. And I thought I was so original…ah well.

By: Naomi B. Robbins

Naomi B. Robbins — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:20:39 +0000

I second Jon’s comment. The Excel – PowerPoint example was just one reason why I dislike 3D charts. Even if PowerPoint’s default is better, it still is unacceptable to have to read some bars from the back and others (from different software) from the front. Another problem with the 3D charts is that they imply we have more informtion about the data than we do. Three dimensions should correspond to three variables, but in this case we only have two.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:40:30 +0000

“They obviously did not get it right for the default 3D chart of Excel and (by accident?) did get it right for PPT.”

Which somehow conveys the message that 3D charts are okay, when in general they work against displaying data effectively. My point is that Excel’s charting functions would be improved by removing half of the chart types, or at least by making it harder to get to them. Maybe force the user to read a disclaimer and click “I Agree” (like a license agreement, eh?).

By: Jan Karel Pieterse

Jan Karel Pieterse — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:06:16 +0000

Naomi: “Not all 3D bar charts are created equal”

Correct of course and not my point.

Key is this part in my post I guess:

“…present properly designed defaults for each available chart TYPE, so the message about the data that particular chart type needs to convey is done in the best possible way…”

If MSFT would get that right it would help a lot. They obviously did not get it right for the default 3D chart of Excel and (by accident?) did get it right for PPT.