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Comment by kjackson2012 | Hacker News Reader

kjackson2012

This is why I strongly believe that regular people should not learn how to code, despite all the "you should learn how to code" articles.

Excel is a really good example of how easy it is to get up and running, and how easy it is to get yourself into a lot of trouble. You might not need to program per se, but you do need to know how to DEBUG and TEST your programs as well. This is something that most people are loathe to do. It requires a great deal of discipline, and even though in finance you're supposed to test spreadsheets during internal auditing, most auditors aren't trained in proper testing/coding, so it ends up being ad hoc. In fact, it's scary how much intermediate financial statements are rubber-stamped/robo-signed by people in the finance, usually because they are pressed for time.

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I generally agree with you, I really do (I code, myself, professionally, or, well, have until very recently) – but I think that your wish that everyone learn to code is missing a few things.

First, what people are doing in Excel is coding.

Second, they do it because Excel is, thus far, the best environment available for lowering the (many) barriers of entry that are perceived as blocking one from learning to "program".

Therefore, in my never to be humble opinion, we'd also be wise to try to figure out a way of helping build in testing methodologies into excel. I think it wouldn't have to be that hard. Imagine a testing mode or a test overlay that you could toggle on and off, allowing you to identify input and output cells, setting test data and expected output, etc.

The crucial thing is that the best work on this front would have to come from Microsoft, if it has to be in Excel. One possible fix would be a testing environment that reads .xlsx files – build something great, sell it to managers and MSFT will either buy it or, more likely, imitate it.

> You might not need to program per se, but you do need to know how to DEBUG and TEST your programs as well. This is something that most people are loathe to do. It requires a great deal of discipline

It requires first and foremost the realizations that bugs in code are frequent, normal and to be expected, no matter how smart and well-prepared you are.

And that's one thing you learn when you learn to code. The first programmers were quite shocked when they found out.

What do you mean exactly by "regular people"?

Thank god that "regular people" are smart enough to not care what you think.

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