> but when those things grow or end up being relied upon they're no better than the hack that the CEOs kids friend who is 'good with computers' produces.
Ronald Reagan allegedly once said "Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.". The same applies to throw-away code and 'prototypes'.
> Perhaps a spreadsheet that allows some form of testing?
For complex, interrelated calculations this definitely makes a lot of sense. From my experience the most common problems with Excel sheets are collaborative editing and version control, though. I'm not sure if more recent versions of Excel and Office 365 in particular solve these issues. Google Spreadsheets sort of does (the UX is lacking, though) but then again hardly any company will even consider putting sensitive data in the cloud and rightfully so.
Even convincing users to use complementary tools that improve Excel-based processes might be difficult because due to prolonged, habitual (ab)use many users don't even see the problems that arise anymore ("Why change this? It's always been done this way."). Implementing such tools in a way they're accepted by users is hard. You can't just add Git or some acceptance testing framework to the flow and expect users to be happy with that. It'd have to be something that seems very intuitive and natural to use for the average Excel users.
A clear path from spreadsheet to application would be an interesting approach, too. Spreadsheets are a conglomeration of model, view and controller logic. If you could somehow separate those semi-automatically and generate a boilerplate application from that this might by a viable approach.
Ronald Reagan allegedly once said "Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.". The same applies to throw-away code and 'prototypes'.
> Perhaps a spreadsheet that allows some form of testing?
For complex, interrelated calculations this definitely makes a lot of sense. From my experience the most common problems with Excel sheets are collaborative editing and version control, though. I'm not sure if more recent versions of Excel and Office 365 in particular solve these issues. Google Spreadsheets sort of does (the UX is lacking, though) but then again hardly any company will even consider putting sensitive data in the cloud and rightfully so.
Even convincing users to use complementary tools that improve Excel-based processes might be difficult because due to prolonged, habitual (ab)use many users don't even see the problems that arise anymore ("Why change this? It's always been done this way."). Implementing such tools in a way they're accepted by users is hard. You can't just add Git or some acceptance testing framework to the flow and expect users to be happy with that. It'd have to be something that seems very intuitive and natural to use for the average Excel users.
A clear path from spreadsheet to application would be an interesting approach, too. Spreadsheets are a conglomeration of model, view and controller logic. If you could somehow separate those semi-automatically and generate a boilerplate application from that this might by a viable approach.