Having a visual way to configure this makes it much more accessible to non-programmers, with error checking available through the host (Excel, in this case), while also reducing the eng effort in building this.
At Google, many internal tools use Sheets as their source of truth for config data, and it works really well.
> Having a visual way to configure this makes it much more accessible to non-programmers
I agree completely but thats not the point he appears to be making. He never stated this was the use case and he reiterated that it was a bad idea which should never be done.
Regardless, I’m saying those arent really unique advantages to excel. They just look unique compared to json, toml, yaml, etc.
I can't think of any data entry method more easily understood by non-programmers than an Excel spreadsheet (or Google Sheets etc). Repetitive data in particular is a breeze since you can drag-expand and use formulas. We use GSheets at work for configs created by non-programmers, and it works great.
At Google, many internal tools use Sheets as their source of truth for config data, and it works really well.