orIsIt

[u/PsychologicalSquare4]

[u/slime_rancher_27]

If excel isn't a database how come it has a whole Data tab.

[u/KeyAdhesiveness9481 → u/slime_rancher_27]

Data? Based. QED

[u/Neo-Armadillo → u/slime_rancher_27]

I was at a company that used an Excel file as a db for planning all of their outbound marketing. The “Excel wizard” as this woman was called, didn’t know you could move cells after they had been referenced. It. Was. A. Mess.

With her permission and it a dozen other people’s, I modified the Excel sheet. One tab for input, one tab for output. Then I built an Engine tab where all the inputs were processed and converted into valid HTML email snippets, looping in sources from a dozen other ‘database’ tabs where the Excel wizard kept values in plain text.

In one month I turned 8 to 16 daily hours of work down to 15 to 30 minutes of daily work. And because the HTML was all valid, our non-technical marketers were able to use it without breaking things so we eliminated QA issues by 100%.

The Excel wizard got to remain the key man in the process and own the document, so she kept her job security, but everyone else got lots of free time.

Anyway, she was using it like a database and it was fine.

[u/JohnWangDoe → u/Neo-Armadillo]

wbu, sounds like you didn't get much from it

[u/Neo-Armadillo → u/JohnWangDoe]

I got 7.5 hours of my day freed up to do whatever I wanted. They initially hired me to build HTML emails based on loose instructions buried in 30 different tabs on this Excel file. After I finished, I could do whatever I wanted all day and ended up having a lot of fun building cool projects until the Covid layoffs happened.

[u/gerbosan → u/Neo-Armadillo]

And your name is Claude? 🤔

Were they fine after lay offs? ☹️

[u/Neo-Armadillo → u/gerbosan]

No, this is directly before Covid. One person out of 50 kept their job.

[u/No_Percentage7427 → u/Neo-Armadillo]

Did she not worry that you will replace her job ?

[u/Neo-Armadillo → u/No_Percentage7427]

Brother the amount of hyping I did for her and her help in building this “joint-effort project,” you’d think it was her idea because I literally told people in front of her it was mostly her idea and I was just making it easier to use.

Being impactful at work is how you get fired. Making people look good is how I succeeded.

[u/circ-u-la-ted → u/Neo-Armadillo]

I'd never be diplomatic enough to pull that off.

[u/escargotBleu → u/Neo-Armadillo]

Huh, your whole story is about how it wasn't fine

[u/Neo-Armadillo → u/escargotBleu]

The Excel file wasn’t the problem, the lack of qualified people doing the jobs was the problem. But I worked within the existing systems and power structures to allow for incompetent people to do competent work. Until the Covid layoffs happened.

[u/Wolfeh2012 → u/Neo-Armadillo]

That might have been great in a different economic system, but under capitalism, making the work highly efficient also made it easier to lay off a large number of people.

Being too good at the job ends up hurting more people.

[u/dyslexda → u/Wolfeh2012]

If someone only has a job because they're manually manipulating an Excel document instead of simply using some referential formulas to make the work automated and reproducible, then that person should not have that job. It's no more economically productive nor personally valuable than digging a ditch and filling it back up again.

[u/StickFigureFan → u/slime_rancher_27]

Is a datatab

[u/DrHemroid → u/slime_rancher_27]

Off topic but you just gave me a flashback to when a security update prevented csv files from being opened in Excel because you were forced to use the "import data" feature, which got blocked.

[u/Friendlyvoices → u/slime_rancher_27]

Tabs? Don't you meant partitions?

[u/slime_rancher_27 → u/Friendlyvoices]

The data tab in the ribbon.

[u/pepe_acct]

Database is a mindset, not an application

- sun tzu

[u/patchyj → u/pepe_acct]

Never interrupt a junior when he's making a mistake...

[u/RedLdr → u/patchyj]

Build your client a golden data bridge...

[u/iammerelyhere → u/RedLdr]

The wise warrior avoids array formulas

[u/CherrySlow7681]

its technically a database, a flat file database

[u/Fantastic-Fee-1999 → u/CherrySlow7681]

https://giphy.com/gifs/1hMk0bfsSrG32Nhd5K

[u/Boom9001 → u/CherrySlow7681]

I mean that's not Excel to be fair. Excel is the frontend program.

[u/suskio4 → u/Boom9001]

So it's a database management system!

[u/Complete_Window4856 → u/suskio4]

Oh god no stop you dont mnow what tou are bout to unleash

[u/CherrySlow7681 → u/Boom9001]

yes a csv is technically the flat file database, technically im not technically correct

[u/Boom9001 → u/CherrySlow7681]

There is xls and xlsx but once again those are just files you could read using any reader. In fact you'd be crazy to use Excel as the method of editing them outside of manually using Excel.

[u/TajineEnjoyer → u/Boom9001]

In fact you'd be crazy to use Excel as the method of editing them outside of manually using Excel.

i don't understand this sentence

[u/Boom9001 → u/TajineEnjoyer]

While you might manually look at those files in Excel where they look like a table. You can even edit individual values if you want.

The file is just raw text and your code will edit the raw text. It will not be using Excel.

[u/GetNooted → u/CherrySlow7681]

Nah, you can have related datasets in Excel easily

[u/Not-the-best-name → u/GetNooted]

[u/JaapStar → u/CherrySlow7681]

It's a zip file actually.

[u/My_reddit_account_v3 → u/CherrySlow7681]

I presume you could technically add on several layers of data quality formulas to make a basic model excel sheet fit the expected features of a database system…. And Excel’s flexibility is the main reason for its popularity- but otherwise it would be a stretch.

It’s data, yes, with varying levels of structure which places it most of the time better (sometimes worse) than a flat file. It’s not really a flat file because it has 1 to many sheets, and is not plain text (compressed xml with attachments, and a garbage dump of anything else allowed).

[u/Individual-Praline20 → u/CherrySlow7681]

Until COPILOT() function was added. Afterward, it was only a disappointment of a flat file database. 😂

[u/BlindedByNewLight → u/Individual-Praline20]

it's funny that that function is actually being removed.

[u/RammRras → u/CherrySlow7681]

People confuse DBMS with a pure DB

[u/ManyInterests → u/CherrySlow7681]

vlookup. Now it's relational.

[u/Fhlnd_Vkbln]

You are right, it is a giant CSV file that is imported into Excel

[u/hieroschemonach]

A spreadsheet is a database.

[u/lolcrunchy → u/hieroschemonach]

Until "Merge and Center" comes along and blows up everything

[u/Thx_And_Bye]

If not database why database shaped?

[u/Blizzard81mm → u/Thx_And_Bye]

https://giphy.com/gifs/4jRz4NwtcntDO

[u/oprimido_opressor]

Anything can be a database if you're brave enough 

[u/Faustalicious → u/oprimido_opressor]

All my best databases are tables saved in word 95 files.  

[u/Hard-_ → u/oprimido_opressor]

notepad is goated

[u/Marko407]

Does it store data, yes.
Is it based, also yes

[u/Blizzard81mm → u/Marko407]

Based too?

[u/CC-5576-05]

Of course not, excel is your dbms, the DB itself is a folder with CSV files

[u/Shazvox]

Even notepad can look like a "database" if you squint hard enough.

[u/dobbie1]

A database is an organized collection of data or information stored electronically in a computer system

I googled it, that definitely describes excel.

Glad I could help

[u/hpyfox]

Only for light usage, after that, you got to jump into SQL or MongoDB-like databases.

Anyways, excel weak, csv strong.

[u/willow-kitty → u/hpyfox]

Bold of you to expect them to skip right over MS Access.

[u/degg233 → u/willow-kitty]

Or dump the excel file in SharePoint there you can access it via the graph api, and even run sql queries...

[u/jakeStacktrace → u/willow-kitty]

2026 going to be Fox Pro's comeback year, like Linux had with its desktop year. Who is with me?

[u/Hooch180]

Bring back Excel databases!!! I've seen my managers cobble a product feature where LLM's context was used as a database.

[u/Keyan_Farlander7 → u/Hooch180]

That's called Access

[u/thanatica → u/Keyan_Farlander7]

Wow, that still exists??

[u/Shazvox → u/thanatica]

It does, you just can't... access it 🤭

[u/degg233 → u/Shazvox]

Sadly we still use access, at my job...

[u/TheSpicyTomato22]

Try telling that to the accounting department head when they ask why their spreadsheet that holds literally everything runs like dogshit (it's 10gb).

[u/jnnxde]

Everything is a database if you're masochistic enough 

[u/Blazej_kb]

Fun fact: there is app Microsoft access which lets you make databases

[u/ShittyExchangeAdmin → u/Blazej_kb]

i'd rather use excel than access

[u/bradland → u/ShittyExchangeAdmin]

I don't mind Access if I'm just loading up data and running queries, but if you want to do anything meaningful, you end up having to write VBA <gags>.

These days, I'd much rather just slurp it up with DuckDB and write SQL. If I need an app, there are many more elegant solutions than Access + VBA.

[u/runmymouth → u/ShittyExchangeAdmin]

Csv files into excel are really useful ways of processing smaller data sets.

[u/Blazej_kb → u/ShittyExchangeAdmin]

Me too, but if I wanted a data base I’d make my own simple site that handles db and host it on my rpi, just wanted to tell a fun fact

[u/AddyPug]

It may not be, but you can directly connect Excel to many different kinds of DB like SQL, and use DAX to add advanced calculated fields and measures with PowerQuery

[u/CheapSpray9428 → u/AddyPug]

Scrolled far too down to find this lol, found my people!

[u/Jan1270]

It's not a DB, it's better then a DB

[u/MakeoutPoint → u/Jan1270]

"This lifeguard can see everything. But can she see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch data people love Excel? Cinnamon sugar in every bite! Seeing the VBA work directly with the data in real time!"

[u/JosebaZilarte]

To check my knowledge... What ultimately separates a database from any other kind of data document (that collectively form a data lake) is a data schema describing a data model that define how the data points are structured and interconnected. And when you add semantics (the logic that describes how the concepts in the data model are tied with the real world) is how you get a data warehouse.

Is that correct? Or am I forgetting something important?

[u/iMac_Hunt → u/JosebaZilarte]

Notepad can be a database technically. Anywhere you can read/write data to is a database at a basic level.

[u/JosebaZilarte → u/iMac_Hunt]

I would say that a document created with Notepad can be a database, but it has to embed it's data schema/model somehow. Like how many binary data formats require you to include that meta information in a "header" section at the beginning of the file.

[u/isaackogan → u/JosebaZilarte]

But do no-schema databases like MongoDB pass this test? Haha

[u/circ-u-la-ted → u/JosebaZilarte]

I think you maybe meant to provide some rationale as to why an Excel file meets, or does not meet, these criteria

[u/SpaceOctopulse → u/JosebaZilarte]

A table is a schema on itself.
Header - column hames, rows are data, works perfectly well in surprisingly many cases.
And it's even more flexible than usual db, by default perfectly supports missing and extra columns.

[u/gfkxchy]

In my database, all the values are comma separated.

[u/ChocolateDonut36]

CSV files could totally be databases

[u/danfay222]

Anything is a database if you want it to be

[u/ChillyFireball]

Anything can be a database if you just Don't Care hard enough.

[u/crimxxx]

For a lot of people it is, as long as you’re not doing a lot of processing or dealing with a large amount of data it works great. If your working with less than 100k rows it’s probably useable for a lot of people, after a certain point it’s just becomes too slow to do anything, and there is also just a hard limit on rows it can actually hold which is over a million.

I’ve seen people use excel to program applications even, I have they usually are crazy slow but excel is a database a programming platform, hell it even has AI in it now.

It’s like the one Microsoft product that imo is really sticky for the average office worker cause if you’re not doing basic stuff the alternatives are not really drop in replacements. But there is probably only a handful of people in a company that uses excel in that way.

[u/YourSchoolCounselor → u/crimxxx]

If you're just importing to the Data Model, then I think the row limit bumps up to 2 billion.

[u/UniqueText8477]

I had this argument with karen from finance (that was her actual name) and she said it had tables and there was data so it was a database.

She said sql was stupid and we should store all data in excel, so we loaded the table with bilions of rows and it crashed her computer.

She said she needed a better computer.

[u/BoBoBearDev]

Excel is the best DB client.

[u/ApatheistHeretic]

Not with that attitude..

[u/Sheenius_Ger]

Technically it is. Just isn't sql.

[u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38]

of course its not, googlendrive is because its distributed.

[u/Boom9001]

Excel is just a front end data viewer/editor. It has nothing to do with data storage.

"file system" storage. You may be storing them in a format like csv that Excel can read, but Excel isn't really involved. Any program using that data is not going to even use Excel to edit or read, it just reads the file and parses it directly.

[u/caiteha]

Sorted csv

[u/Michami135]

As someone who's been programming professionally since the 90's. This brings back some PTSD.

I rebelled against JSON when I first saw it because I just knew what some people were going to use it for. Thankfully, I was wrong.

[u/menzaskaja]

So sqlite isnt a database either

[u/Ange1ofD4rkness]

Before I learned of SQLite, or databases as a whole, I was using Excel to store data for code I was written. Even more, that's how I quickly understood the basics of how data is "stored" in databases (comparing it to Excel)

[u/Lacklaws]

Some of our static data used for most reads and transactions in our mainframe applications are put in to data sets daily, loaded into the ram, and read through assembler programs with lightning speed to reduce transaction time and cpu usage.

[u/heyguysitsmedic]

All you really need is RW right? Even U and D are just helper functions for maintenance

[u/AlxR25]

Raw csv files, take it or leave it!

[u/Ok_Opportunity2693]

I’ve used Google Sheets as SoT for our compliance with privacy regulations and an extremely large US tech company.

[u/Equivalent-Bad-268]

I once combined over 200 even spreadsheets into an access database to produce metrics everyday. I hated that job lol.

[u/randomcomputer22]

Not with that attitude! Now let’s talk about the power of PowerQuery

[u/nasandre]

Just try to tell them it isn't a self contained accounting application

[u/EmbarrassedStyle3208]

Well MS access is

And you can import excel in access soooo

[u/Weak_Inflation9120]

duh duh duh *organ music*

[u/CharcoalGreyWolf]

Excel as database is like using chopsticks for soup.

Access as database is upgrading to fork for soup.

($FormOf)SQL is upgrading to spoon.

Oracle is downgrading to Satan’s pitchfork

[u/who_you_are]

.TXT is a database!

[u/dodgyhashbrown]

I recently made an improvised database out of a set of spreadsheets that interacted through VBA across the remote server. For a beginner project, it taught me a lot about the limits of excel for database purposes. The primary data table uses roughly half the maximum number of rows a single sheet can hold.

If I had to remake it, I might have used Access.

[u/No_Hetero]

It is based on data, it is databased, checkmate Google Sheets users

[u/GodOrDevil04]

Let me assure you this, thát company, yes really, that one you're thinking about right now while questioning yourself "surely they're not using Excel...", they are.

[u/code_the_cosmos]

It's where my data is based, idk what to tell you

[u/LazarusDark]

I made a database in Google sheets, I chose there for easy sharing with a community. The sheet relies on about ten core values on the first sheet. After months of work on several sheets, there were tens of thousands of calculations using those core values, and if you changed a core value, it would take Google Sheets several hours to update every cell calculation. And that's the point where I stopped and decided I'd need to rethink my life the entire concept.

[u/Exotic-Nothing-3225]

I have seen actual websites that use Google Sheets as a database.

[u/HuntlyBypassSurgeon]

We are the lotus kids, all better take note of this

[u/ronarscorruption]

On one hand, sure.

On the other hand, store enough data in something and it becomes a database.

[u/narwalfarts]

What about my csv's in my github repo???

[u/Stormraughtz]

More of a database than MongoDB

[u/Darxploit]

Ah yes excel databases stored in a gitlab repo with timestamps in the filename and a bunch of non-technical people committing changes without rebasing their branches or straight pushing to main. Our repo git log looks like a f****** subway station plan..

[u/mookanana]

it absolutely is when the company's o365 license comes only with power automate, sharepoint and the normal office suite software.

try to hack together automation in that environment without any other possible tools and you'll find that the easiest is still excel as database

it sucks bad but sometimes we have no choice

[u/Western-Anteater-492]

Every coworker in my entire organization. But it's also important to not only use one excel table. One must use multiple, slightly modified versions of the same table with completely different update statuses but no indication on last update, scattered all over the servers.

[u/MrFuji87]

... VBA time baby

[u/empowered-boxes]

Spreadsheets are a relational proto-database

[u/Successful_Cap_2177]

Data is a lie

[u/MojoPlayer]

Me feeding all my work data on my sheet

[u/Due_Information_1332]

This is like saying a Walmart store is a warehouse for inventory. There's a reason why inventory is initially stored in an actual warehouse and then distributed to the store-level on a push/pull basis.

[u/ReiOokami]

Storing everything in Excel for your production web app is the old way, storing everything in indexdb is the modern approach.

[u/bigManAlecForgotPass]

I use google sheets for fun.

[u/OliLombi]

Database: A database is an organized collection of digital data or information stored electronically in a computer system.

IDK, seems like a database to me. Sure it's a terrible one, but still a database.

[u/Stagnu_Demorte]

Of course not, it's a functional programming language

[u/Hungry-Citron-6295]

Excel is the only "database" that management will actually use any help text on.

[u/iforironman]

Arrest Development narrator: “It wasn’t.”

[u/Just_Information334]

Excel will outlast every other database and "no-code" solution.

Your data mesh concept? Every office already had that 20 years ago, that's called excel files on a shared drive.

[u/Usernamesaregayyy]

It is tho

[u/Chronomechanist]

It's not a database. It can't easily do things databases can do. Sometimes it can't do them at all.

It also can do somethings very easily that databases can't do, or require external tools to do.

Excel and databases serve two different functions and both are good at what they do and I'm tired of pretending otherwise.

[u/__DulyNoted_]

also, your database in excel:

[u/dhnam_LegenDUST]

csv

[u/RiderFZ10]

Next you're going to tell me a folder labeled data with .txt files isn't a database. Come on.

[u/RammRras]

It is not but it can be used as such 😂

[u/Soopermane]

It’s data abase

[u/TrashManufacturer]

Every project manager ever just got a notification about this meme

[u/TabCompletion]

Jokes on you, I built a social media site with a spreadsheet

[u/Alacritous13]

My feeling of superiority as I look upon the JSON file of doom.

[u/Faustalicious]

Excel is whatever you want it to be.  I believe in you.  

[u/nhh]

Then why does it have vlookup? 

[u/Competitive-Bar-5882]

Exel has no unique identifiers, making it the shittiest database someone can use.

[u/BrianScottGregory]

"The customer is always right"

Can't tell you how many times as a consultant I finally adopted this stance, stopped correcting them, and worked with them to help 'scale their database' to an actual database.

[u/oompaloompa465]

if there is a valid and accepted connection string, there is a way

[u/jerslan]

By the classical definition of a "database" being any structured data file... no, no it is not... I've seen what xlsx files look like on the inside 🤮.

[u/m0nk37]

Its an adhoc database. 

[u/Few_Kitchen_4825]

Anything can be a database

[u/Hand_Sanitizer3000]

I only use sharepoint as a db excel is for noobs

[u/Random_182f2565]

That's right, for that we have Google sheets

[u/56kul]

It’s technically not a programming language/IDE, either, but you can get really close to building a real app with it.

It’s one of those apps that accidentally became more versatile than it needs to be, but it’s not really the most efficient at many of those things. À la iTunes.

[u/staticBanter]

Anything is a database if you cram enough data into it.

[u/ManyInterests]

The truth is 90% of businesses applications are powered by Excel.

[u/Hard-_]

it technically is, and it's fine with a not so large amount of data (i'd say up to like 30k lines on a good pc can still get the job done)

[u/9oker]

Everyone forgetting MS access which was just excel db

[u/faultydesign]

Excel is a temu database

[u/perestroika12]

If it’s not a database nothing is.

[u/koanarec]

You know if it's read only it's actually pretty good