Post #2455662
2026-04-17 08:24 UTC
@michcampbell@fediscience.org I have a theory. When I worked at Microsoft (ugh) I was QA on Microsoft Project. There we had one guy who knew how the core code worked. He retired.
The next versions of the software were built without the knowledge because it went with him.
I bet Excel is like that, the core engine knowledge is probably lost. And all releases are essentially wrapping more "features" around that core that no one knows how it works anymore. And are afraid to touch it because if it breaks...
Replies (2)
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@michcampbell@fediscience.org 2026-04-17 08:52
@Sablebadger@dice.camp reminds me of the classic xkcd comic...
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@AlsoPaisleyCat@tenforward.social 2026-05-08 22:25
@Sablebadger@dice.camp @michcampbell@fediscience.org as someone who at one point in the 80s and early 90s used them all — VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, QuattroPro and then eXcel — eXcel (now just Excel) was the worst from the beginning. Perhaps because it was last and had to be ‘different enough’ from its predecessors, the underlying architecture was worse and the original menu structure was unintuitive. I’ve never trusted it. It remains archetypical example of how an inferior standard can achieve market dominance.