It "isn't reality" because it's a very hard problem that hasn't been well solved. That should intimidate you enough to take it seriously but not to keep you from trying.

While the concepts are similar the brittleness and bad design of spreadsheets (as I say elsewhere in the thread they should have had tables as first class object from day one) limits the ability to really make them a sane solution.

That being said, spreadsheets (some running hedge funds) are a testament that the core concepts are learnable.