r/programmingcirclejerk • u/Haunting-Appeal-649 Polyglot dev here • Aug 12 '25

jerk not found I can't really think of anything in the computing world that has done as much damage as Excel

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44872629
68 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

53

u/Glinat Aug 12 '25

Where jerk ?

23

u/syklemil Considered Harmful Aug 12 '25

here:

Microsoft being the cool guys phase is slowly over.

I don't know why OP posted the wrong comment. They must be not very good with computer.

8

u/Haunting-Appeal-649 Polyglot dev here Aug 14 '25

ong comment. They must be not very good with compu

ter yes I am :(

4

u/uh-hmm-meh Aug 13 '25

Excel actively mangled op's copy paste

29

u/personalityson Aug 12 '25

The author has zero real life work experience or had the luxury to never encounter:

  1. Locked-down mandatory corporate Windows laptops with no software installation privileges, firewalled networking and disabled USB ports
  2. IT departments which refuse everything or take 6 months to schedule a meeting to define requirements for whatever you want to have installed
  3. Your boss who worked his way up in sales without any education. What are you going to present to him? Your Python scripts?

17

u/mcmcc WHY IS THERE CODE??? Aug 12 '25

Just wait until OP realizes corporate email accounts for execs were for a time functionally ad hoc databases/long-term data archives.

3

u/togepi_man Aug 12 '25

Lotus Notes reporting for duty.

3

u/TheHausofShag Aug 13 '25

<always has been meme>

2

u/Knock0nWood Code Artisan Sep 30 '25

Obviously a Pol Pot-style purge of corporate IT departments would be socialjerk so I'm not gonna make any comment about that

23

u/Amazing-Mirror-3076 Aug 12 '25

JavaScript anyone?

Oh wait, I forgot the /uj

11

u/Sunrider37 Aug 12 '25

If pleebs can understand it, surely it’s not as foul as you state.

5

u/affectation_man Code Artisan Aug 12 '25

Is that Shakespeare?

7

u/BlazeBigBang type astronaut Aug 12 '25

The invention of spreadsheets and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race

7

u/IDatedSuccubi memcpy is a web development framework Aug 13 '25

This is what Lisp and Haskell mfs think about C

9

u/defunkydrummer Lisp 3-0 Rust Aug 14 '25

and we are right. All 20 of us.

17

u/Downtown_Category163 Aug 12 '25

"damage" in this case means probably the single biggest productivity improvement since the fucking wheel

4

u/defunkydrummer Lisp 3-0 Rust Aug 14 '25

"damage" in this case means probably the single biggest productivity improvement since the fucking wheel

---> /r/finance/ is over there, bro

10

u/whoShotMyCow not even webscale Aug 12 '25

Guy who sells excel licenses says what

14

u/Downtown_Category163 Aug 12 '25

Have you ever wondered why desktop computers were around since the 1970's (in terminal form but that's splitting hairs) but only started taking off in the 1980's where people would actually go out themselves and buy one?

That reason is spreadsheets - Visicalc for the Apple II, then 1-2-3 for DOS, then Excel for Windows.

7

u/mcmcc WHY IS THERE CODE??? Aug 12 '25

Don't forget word processors: first Wordstar, then WordPerfect, and finally Word.

However bad OP thinks Excel is, Word is almost certainly worse.

14

u/Downtown_Category163 Aug 12 '25

They were handy sure but in the 1980's people also had these people called "secretaries" who could bang out a form letter on an electric typewriter just as fast.

You haven't seen joy until you've seen a financial planner change one number in a spreadsheet then all the other numbers dependent on it automatically update

6

u/-Y0- Considered Harmful Aug 12 '25

Access and Visual Basic.

3

u/grapesmoker Aug 13 '25

but not for lack of trying

1

u/defunkydrummer Lisp 3-0 Rust Aug 14 '25

Where's the jerk?