this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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$16bn health agency managed finances with Excel spreadsheet. (www.theregister.com)
submitted 2 days ago by Tea@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
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It's just one of 6,000 apps that New Zealand thinks might be best tamed with ERP

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[–] agelord@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is it powerful? Yes

Is it fast when dealing with large volume of data? No

Are the "powerful" features intuitive to new users? Also no.

Source: I use Excel, Python, SQL for job

[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

To be fair I think Excel is faster to get a novice up to speed than teaching them to program

Source: Manage SQL database infrastructure for a living

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 0 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Surely its not any harder than teaching them basic SQL.

[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I guess it depends on what you define as "basic SQL". Because most people are already used to working with desktop apps, and familiar with the office programs specifically.

You'd essentially have to teach them programming. Its like when people say "terminal is better than GUI" (it's me, I say that) but then you forget about all of the people who don't know the difference between a desktop and a modem

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 0 points 18 hours ago

It wouldn't be hard to teach them a graphical representation of SQL, something like Access I guess. Teach them concepts like joins and where clauses, and give them software that abstracts that a bit.

Then add some Excel-like features on top. Everything would end up being SQL at the end of the day, and sysadmins could then tune things to keep them fast (e.g. replicate DBs so poorly optimized queries don't hurt the whole org, esp. if a dept only needs read access).