jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West) (10/19/85)
I don't know how many of you are interested in Excel (this is, after all,
a hacker board), but I'd like to offer some comments on my copy of 1 week.
I'm not talking about vaporware, pre-release, or any of the other junk the
mags have. I'm talking about $238 (my company's $, not mine) of cold hard cash.
Excel is
Spreadsheet: A
Chart: B
Database: C-
Overall: B+
It is very easy to get started with. With no prior spreadsheet experience,
I had a nice chart up within about 90 minutes of opening the UPS box. After
watching an office mate struggle with 1-2-3 (I refuse to use an IBM), I
think it probably beats the PC/Lotus combination in that regard.
The spreadsheet is reasonably fast and very powerful. When I say reasonably,
a spreadsheet in auto-calc mode with lots of formulas is very tedious to use,
but I'm not sure any of the others are any better. The standard spreadsheet
formulas seem reasonable, and of course, if you don't like them, there's
"Function Macros."
The charting program is easy to use but a little inflexible. The gallery of
Excel is missing a few key items (a hi-lo histogram, both in bar and column
format, is needed). My main gripe is that the selection process for
manipulating data series is a little bit clumsy. Also, I would have liked
some dynamic linking between spreadsheet and chart (add a new line, get a new
bar), but it didn't do it, at least for me.
In fact, that seems to be a serious weakness of the existing system. Changing
the format of the spreadsheet automatically redoes references on that sheet,
but not others that reference it. I guess that's what "named cells" are for.
All in all, I thought the chart was adequate and would be given an "A" if the
next release adds a few little details here and there.
As for the "database", I'm not sure what's expected here. I gather from
all the docs that Excel is patterned after 1-2-3, and, except for macros,
largely compatible with it. If so, it may be a limitation inherited from 1-2-3.
But to call Excel a database program is like calling a VAX a supercomputer.
It can manipulate data, true, but I consider the interface very anti-user
friendly. Basically you mark one area of a worksheet as "database", a
second as "criteria" (selection keys to you and me) and the third as "extract
region", and it will paste the matching records into that area.
To say "Look up the site name in column one and place its corresponding
machine type in column two" (assume the database holds sites and types) is
about a 20-line macro. From my understanding, it's a little bit
more straightforward in something like Dbase II--I really just want
a lookup function, as in =FIND("Site",MySite,"Type") or some such.
All in all, the database would be intolerably poor if not for "Command
Macros". (I was unable to get function macros to work with the database).
So I start up my extraction macro and walk away for five minutes and
all my fields are filled in. Some built-in functions do averages and
trends, but you still have to use cells for "database" and "criteria".
It is, lamentably, copy-protected. I'll have to wait for Copy II Mac
n+1, so I can put my master disks back down into the deep, dark drawer
where I keep all other masters.
I would say if someone wants a database integrated with a spreadsheet,
this is not it. If you want a spreadsheet with adequate charts and
limited database capability, this is it. The price (at "Egghead
Discount Software") seems quite reasonable for what you get; I might
just buy my own.
Joel West CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o UC San Diego)
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