Skip to content

Comment on Ask HN: What would Excel's formula language look like if you invented it today?

Comments

I wouldn't change a lot, perhaps nothing.

VBA is a fuzzy line; a lot of functionality is added through plugins from Bloomberg / Datastream / Reauters (I live in the financial world) through C++ libraries for all kinds of functions.

Integrity of data and calculation... Best not to use Excel for critical, non audited systems. Changing the language will not change the potential to use a dodgy clockwork clock (spreadsheet) to do the job of a digital watch.

I do deeply dislike the visualisation of data. Formatting a chart is simple but tedious. If venturing from bar / line / area / scatter charts i.e. more than an extremely linear presentation of data, then Excel does not excel.

But a vlookup, or a pivot, at the stroke of a few characters, is amazing. Given the >65535 line restriction of earlier versions of excel, it would be very nice these functions could function on larger data groups, the hundreds of thousands of lines Excel now represents in rows.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.