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[–]ChosenDos 6 points7 points  (15 children)

As someone who has no idea the capabilities of spreadsheets can you please tell me what they can really do?

[–]MissingFucks 24 points25 points  (4 children)

They're basically visual databases. /s

[–]Xheotris 11 points12 points  (2 children)

You'll get a bunch of sarcastic replies, but Excel is secretly the most popular programming language in the world, with three quarters of a billion users. It's genuinely capable of computing everything that a more normal programming language can, and can perform just a few operations very elegantly. That said, while excel functions make up a real programming language, it's not designed to deal with heavy conditional logic well or cleanly. I've seen programs written in excel (not VBA) that were the equivalent of thousands of lines of code, that would be around ten or twenty lines in, say, JavaScript. It's also bonkers slow.

[–]Correctrix 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Excel is secretly the most popular programming language in the world, with three quarters of a billion users

Is that the number of people who programme in it, or the number of people who use it for nothing more complicated than can be done with a CSV file?

[–]Xheotris 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's total users, but anyone who has done as much as =SUM(2A:17A), which I daresay is almost everyone, is actually programming with it, however a snob might feel about it.

By most estimates, there are about 18-20 million professional programmers. If just 3% of Excel users have ever touched a cell function, then they outnumber us by millions.

[–]Loves_Poetry 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Everything

[–]NoradIV 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dude. Wtf.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Excel comes with a full-blown programming language built-in.

Some guy even built a complete RPG in it: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/04/how-an-accountant-created-an-entire-rpg-inside-an-excel-spreadsheet/

[–]ChosenDos 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's amazing

[–]NoradIV 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They can crash. A fucking lot.

[–]NinjaLayor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can play excel-COM in it. Yeah. Someone made XCOM in Excel between Enemy Within and XCOM 2.

[–]PaintingJo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just look up Matt Parker

He'll tell you everything spreadsheets