
VisiCalc: The 30th Anniversary of the (No Good) Spreadsheet App - astrec
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338796,00.asp
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TomOfTTB
What a dope Dvorak is.

His theory that the mortgage crisis was caused by spreadsheets making bad
decisions is just a little stupid. Management has the company spreadsheets
designed to make decisions based on the rules they set down for giving a loan.
Those rules are the same whether it's a spreadsheet filling in the numbers or
whether people are calculating the numbers manually.

Mr. Dvorak doesn't seem to grasp the concept of automation. Automation simply
takes a process and lets the computer do the parts it's capable of. It does
not invent a new process. So the loans being given would be the same no matter
what.

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gaius
I think his point is that spreadsheets allow people to produce convincing
models (even convincing themselves) without necessarily understanding them.
It's like a chainsaw could trim your hedge in no time, provided you managed
not to saw through your own legs in the process.

Certainly if Joe Spreadsheet User doesn't understand concepts like numerical
stability, he really shouldn't be allowed to make decisions with other
people's money.

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TomOfTTB
But again that has nothing to do with the spreadsheet it has to do with the
process (or model in your terms). So to give an example lets say the
spreadsheet was never invented. That wouldn't have stopped people from
creating a mathematical equation to determine credit worthiness. Bankers would
just have Joe Spreadsheet do the equation by hand.

He's still going to be equally uninformed and he's certainly not going to be
able to verify the validity of the equations while he's doing it. He's simply
completing the required steps to get the equation to produce an answer.

So again the spreadsheet isn't obscuring anything that wouldn't have been
obscured without it. If anything it's saving us from the stupid mistakes that
Joe Spreadsheet would be making if he tried to do by hand what a computer
does.

~~~
gaius
But the algorithm, the equation that Joe is using will have been created by a
mathematician or economist in that case. The thing with spreadsheets is you
can tweak them 'til it "looks right" with your sample data, but still have no
idea how it will behave when exposed to real data. A model built empirically
by one untrained person will show them what they expect to see, or worse what
they _want_ to see. Maths should be left to the mathematicians just as
chainsaws should be left to the lumberjacks.

~~~
TomOfTTB
The algorithm would have been created by a mathematician no matter what.
Spreadsheets don't create equations to judge credit worthiness they only
execute them. Because computers don't create process they just automate it.

So the difference between the equations being used to calculate credit
worthiness should be unchanged whether you're using a computer or a pencil and
paper. The computer just does it faster. That in turn means the numbers can be
tweaked no matter what.

If anything, the computer makes it harder to tweak the number because a
manager who oversees you only has to check the 6 numbers you put in and not
spend an hour redoing your calculations by hand.

The reality is mathematicians wouldn't be giving loans no matter what. Just as
physicists don't run power plants they just make a procedure and pass it off
to a lower paid laborer. So Joe Spreadsheet would be the one giving the loan
regardless.

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scblock
Sadly, this is just another Dvorak troll with no useful information. I would
have loved (seriously, that is why I clicked) to read a detailed overview of
what VisiCalc did, what it couldn't do, screenshots, features, limitations,
quirks, effects on the industry, etc. Instead we get a "man, spreadsheets
suck" essay, if one can apply that word.

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tokenadult
"This is what caused the mortgage crisis: Spreadsheets instead of people were
making decisions on loans."

That's an interesting perspective. It may be that a loan officer's
nonquantitative intuition based on personal experience was a better basis for
making loan decisions than running a formula on a spreadsheet.

~~~
TomOfTTB
But the real question, which Dvorak misses, is whether management types would
trust that type of intuition. Loans are big business so I don't see a company
like BofA trusting the intution of individual loan agents. Sad but true.

So I have to believe the process of giving a loan would be based on the same
rules even if there were no spreadsheets.

