Re: WHY

hrlngrv_at_aol.com
Date: 12/22/04 

Date: 22 Dec 2004 14:53:27 -0800

aaron_kempf@hotmail.com wrote...
...
>I just think that it is funny that all of these people get
sidetracked..
>developing 'solutions' in Excel.
...

There are solutions to some business problems that are best addressed
by punching number and operator keys on a calculator. It'd be foolish
to use databases instead. If you need to, consider spreadsheets the
next step up from calculators. They're still useful, and for more than
you may realize they're still more efficient than the alternatives.

>re-creating the same spread***, week in and week out..

If true, then that's inefficient (as already agreed). That only means
that predominantly repetitive tasks may be better automated with
databases and reporting tools.

>templates' don't help-- what happens when they change??

Uh . . . maybe the same thing that happens when stored procedures
change? Maybe the same thing that happens when the reporting tool
software is upgraded but the new version has a bug that the old version
didn't.

And as I explained before, if you adopt a storage scheme in which
*only* user entries are stored in data files (which could be .XLS
files, plain text files, or even XML files) and the 'template' workbook
(stored centrally and not modified by users) reads its data from those
data files and 'saves' user entries to those data files, then aside
from newly introduced bugs nothing but good happens when templates
change.

I know this isn't the normal way spreadsheets are designed, but it's
analagous to how Excel itself works. When you save an .XLS file, Excel
doesn't embed a full copy of EXCEL.EXE in it. I just mean applying the
same approach to separating user entries from formulas and macros. IT
CAN BE DONE!

>do you have to go back and 'untemplate' everything you do and push it
into a
>new template?

You don't understand. See above. You're laboring under the
misconception that you always have to save complete copies of the
formulas and macros along with user entries. You don't.

Even if you did, it's a useful exercise to develop workbooks that use
tables (work*** ranges) consisting of work***/range addresses and
revised contents and macros that apply the revisions contained in such
tables to targetted workbooks. Batch updating of existing workbooks
isn't so difficult, well, not after the first few times you do it.