The Spreadsheet Temptation

DON’T USE A SPREAD- SHEET! DO IT RIGHT. BUT A SPREADSHEET WOULD BE SO EASY. IN THE LONG RUN YOU’LL REGRET IT! TAKE THE TIME TO WRITE REAL CODE. JUST PASTE THE DATA! (TINKER UNTIL IT WORKS)! BUILD A LABYRINTH OF REGEX(REPLACE() AND ARRAYFORMULA()! FEEL THE POWER! FIGHT THE TEMPTATION! EVER TRIED QUERY() IN GOOGLE SHEETS? IT LETS YOU TREAT A BLOCK OF CELLS LIKE A DATABASE AND RUN SQL QUERIES ON THEM DON’T LISTEN TO— ...WAIT. REALLY? YES. AND LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT IMPORTHTML()... OOOH...

A four-panel black-and-white programmer comic shows stick figures arguing over whether to use a spreadsheet or write proper code. The supposedly responsible coder warns against spreadsheets, but then gets tempted by Google Sheets functions like QUERY(), REGEXREPLACE(), ARRAYFORMULA(), and IMPORTHTML(). The joke is that programmers who insist on building elaborate code can become just as enthusiastic about obscure spreadsheet features, making this a reaction to overengineering and tool temptation.

• @ithueti / 1107 2019-07-24
• @dev_meme / 491 2019-07-25