this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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There's a ton of reasons to hate Excel, I'm sure, but I don't think lack of support for relational data is a reasonable one. There's tools for that job, but Excel isn't trying to be one of them.
Just because it doesn't offer features a database has doesn't mean people aren't trying to use it as one
I support your argument, but unfortunately there are some real monstrosities out there that have carried small businesses since decades
Yeah, not denying that people use Excel to do all kinds of crazy shit. People using the tool wrong isn't the tool's fault though, right?
Wrong! If I am using a hammer to deliver babies I expect hammer manufacturers to put a rubber coating on the claw so it doesn't scratch the baby as I pry it out.
Reminded me of these two projects by some Dylan Tallchief on YouTube:
He first made a programmable drum machine, then a DAW in Excel.
I get that. But it's a case that's just so incredibly common. Tagging/categorization. We end up with multiple columns like 'cat 1', 'cat 2', etc. Or doing pivot tables. I guess to me there's pretty much always something that can do the job better, but the reality is that in the corporate setting I operate in everybody uses Excel.
You are trying to use Excel like a database and that’s not its job. Use Access for that, if you must stick within the Office ecosystem
If I'm the only one doing it then I'd prefer to stick with sqlite. But the reality is that everyone I work with does these kinds of things in excel, and it's a shitshow. Yes, u could say 'don't blame the tool', but it's ms shoving it down our throats and they could've done much better with the time they had.