On: Learning to code vs. learning to automate

[solinent]

To put what you've said more succinctly, even though reductionism is valid for a computer, there is no reason for us to reduce everyone to transistors.

My mother is an accountant for example, and she could easily pick up SQL or a programming language, but the issue with teaching her one is that it doesn't solve any of her immediate problems. Excel already automates most of that work away, so for her that's all she needs.

Your company's accountants can probably write excel statements that are equivalent to complex SQL statements, so I wouldn't underestimate them :)

[dsjimi → solinent]

Excel is the world's most popular IDE ;)

[ethbro → dsjimi]

One of my weed out questions in programming interviews is to ask their opinion on Excel. Specifically, strengths and weaknesses.

If they don't come up with at least one strength or spend the whole answer bashing it, that's an instant reject for any position touching UX.

[perl4ever → ethbro]

I could bash it in ways you probably haven't heard before...

The clashing paradigms of the Data Model and "vanilla" Excel have really been aggravating me recently.

I feel like Excel is underutilized for cultural reasons and it seems like it can do anything I was previously asked to use Qlikview for.

But the fundamental reason I am using Excel these days is because I don't want to be subjected to a programming interview, ever again.

I got my current job without any particular technical requirements, and the interview was entirely about how I manage my time and multitask.

[wiseleo → solinent]

If only she knew she could interact with Excel using SQL. I have shown that to some accountants and saw lightbulbs appear over their heads. :)

[perl4ever → wiseleo]

Are you talking about querying databases from Excel, or querying tables in your spreadsheet as if it was a database?