> especially so for people who can't code.
> especially so for people who can't code.
One day you are writing ‘sum(a2:a201)’ the next you do some conditional formatting and so the complexity builds up very slowly with your needs.
With sql, day one:
‘SELECT SUM(Column) AS Total FROM Table;‘
Way more complicated. Way more powerful too, but most people don’t need the power until much later.
And you have to work in the console which is an unfamiliar ui for many.
It’s not impossible, but very high overhead in comparison.
Doesn’t really change the point.
As of this writing, there are twenty-two comments on this thread about airtable. All but four are either you or responding to you bringing it up.
I think it’s fair to say that whatever its advantages may be, it is relatively unknown, and therefore a higher-overhead entree into programming than straight up spreadsheets.
Just learning about it or finding fit for purpose takes more time than diving into a spreadsheet. And as always the argument is not that spreadsheets are more powerful or better, but that they are much easier and more incremental to learn and start with.
That's it. It's the math notation from high school, plus cell references, which can be inserted by clicking a cell.
I’ve worked in academics and industry around biologists, chemists, physicists, statisticians, bioinformaticians, and all varieties of engineers.
I’ve never seen “huge swaths” of anyone expected to learn R for anything outside of a few niche areas in statistics and bioinformatics.
What people are expected to know is how to use a spreadsheet. What people are often given is Microsoft Excel, and essentially nothing else. A lot of companies wouldn’t dream of letting random employees install or use R or Python.
It’s not ideal. But some battles can’t be won and aren’t worth fighting. Which is why people use Excel for so many things.
I never seen R being used, when Excel doesn't work out, it is something like Tableau instead.
Years after we broke up, a new company she joined required her to take a VBA training course, and she texted me and told me I was right, VBA was easy and her biggest challenge was being patient while the other students struggled.