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Comment by sokoloff

3 days ago

For me, some complex Excel usage was not replicable in either Sheets or LibreOffice.

Excel I'd argue is the primary reason for most in the business world.

What LibreOffice misses, and sheets to a lesser extent, is that Excel isn't just a spreadsheet app. It's a general-purpose programming environment for non-devs (although, at a certain point, you could argue they are effectively programming even if they don't see it that way).

Yeah, there are better solutions. At a certain level of complexity, you probably shouldn't be using Excel and should switch to Python+some SQL database, but there's something to be said about the visual environment Excel provides.

Excel is Microsoft's killer app

  • > It's a general-purpose programming environment for non-devs

    Google sheets's programmability is way better (than the last time I used) Excel, with direct support for python, which Gemini can write just fine. It's a bit fiddly in places, I'll admit, but Google sheets is definitely a programming environment.