Originally posted by duby229
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For my job, a lot of what I do involves grabbing data from databases and create automated processes that generate spreadsheets with only a few select fields. There is a lot you can do to take data from a database and make it user-friendly, using things such as freeze-panes, conditional formatting, automated totals, groups/outlines, autofilters, cells that link to other sheets, graphs, gant charts, staggered background colors, and so on. Depending on what the client needs, you can also summarize hundreds of thousands of records into a small table involving maybe just 10 columns and 20 rows. These are all things that are best done in programs like Calc or Excel.
If you just take 30 fields and paste them in a plain un-formatted table with a calculation here and there, you're using a spreadsheet wrong.
I'm not in any way arguing about lack of multithreading. I'm just arguing that giant spreadsheets that can't be understood is his particular problem. And it's probably your particular problem too from your description. The only person in this world that can look at your spreadsheet and understand it is probably you alone.
A lot of what makes a speradsheet hard to read often has to do with how many fields you include, but it isn't exclusive to that. You can build spreadsheets that include 40 fields and are user-friendly if you format it properly.
EDIT:
To put things in another perspective, take a look at programming. Using tabs, spacing, and comments makes all the difference in how legible your code is. If you do each of those things right, even an amateur can decipher what you wrote. But if they're inconsistent (or just lacking entirely) then even a professional can't read your code.
Meanwhile, your IDE's way of color-coding and formatting your code makes a night and day difference when trying to read it. The code is exactly the same, but it can go from hard-to-read to "oh this makes sense".
You also have to consider how much code is fluff or unnecessary. I have shortened 100-line example files down to 20 with the exact same behavior.
All of this relates to how a spreadsheet should be done.
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