Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

Re:Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a gr... by chanandler_bong on Thursday March 31, 2022 @12:20PM (#30868965)

"A spreadsheet is then the simplest, most organically natural way of organizing discrete units of information, the easiest way to perform CRUD operations on any type of data."

So... you've basically answered the question here.

"It’s been 40 years since the original Visicalc spreadsheet program was released, and no one has been able to beat them"

There is a reason that columnar workbooks and spreadsheets have been around since humans started writing down numbers and manipulating them... it works.

A "grid of cells" does exactly what it is supposed to do in the most efficient manner possible. The only "innovation" opportunities are making the underlying product suck less, or providing analytics/reporting functionality.

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Re:Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a gr... by pete_nic on Thursday March 31, 2022 @12:33PM (#30869172)

I agree. There may be no better UX alternative than columnar spreadsheets. Excel shines in scenario analysis when, for example, the data comes from your head. I believe Excel has an opportunity to improve when data comes from external sources like CSV dump from a CRM. I would like to see Excel improve the way it allows you to extract data from other systems which would reduce redundant effort and decrease the likelihood of errors.

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Re:Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a gr... by chanandler_bong on Monday April 04, 2022 @06:40PM (#30912922)

Oh God... flashbacks to hacking ODBC connections to Access databases! ACK!

But yeah, it would be cool if you could pull directly from an API in to Excel. Or directly parse JSON input without having to mangle it in jq first.

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