Is there a real alternative?

>>52334536
nope, nothing else even comes close

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Nope. Learn it and love it.

One issue is that MS Excel hasn't really added anything new in the last 10 years. There just isn't anything more to put into spreadsheet technology, its more or less "complete". At the rate things are going with other competitors it will still take them a looooong time to catch up though.

>>52334638
tell me about the competitors

and why is it so hard to write a reliable spreadsheet program

Scripting.

Org-mode

.csv files. Excel is literally just csv files with a pretty GUI.
.csv files are superior for data manipulation with programs written in the language of your choice.

LibreOffice Calc? Or at does Excel do better?

Excel is great senpai, it allows office drones to manipulate tables without the training to manage things like CSV files and SQL.

I use LO Calc and its totally fine.

How did Excel become so dominant? I remember computer magazines as a kid used to hold hot debates about the relative merits of Quattro, 1-2-3, and Excel.

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>>52334766
Apache OpenOffice and Libreoffice: Both forks of the OpenOffice.org project, which its self is a fork of the much older Star Office suite by Oracle. Probably the most popular competitors as they're both free software. Libreoffice gets more development and is usually recommended over Apache OO

Calc, libreoffice's excel clone, has gotten most of excel's functionality down but a lot of it is pretty choppy. For example it doesn't have VBA, instead it translates macros into its own Python-based engine. Its also butt ugly as you can see in the pic.

>>52334536
lotus 1-2-3

>>52337011
how is that ugly?

>>52337029
It's open source.

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>>52337029
I find office 2013/2016 to be uglier with the "metro" style.
It get's the job done for light spreadsheet work.
But i still use Excel for VBA work.

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>>52337011
>For example it doesn't have VBA, instead it translates macros into its own Python-based engine.
Well, that's great, because VBA is utter garbage.
>Its also butt ugly as you can see in the pic.
Um, ugly how?
Maybe your problem is that you're using Windows. Under a proper OS, you can change themes.

>>52334638
>One issue is that MS Excel hasn't really added anything new in the last 10 years.
seriously, can excel still not show two spreadsheets at the same time?

>>52337029
Something just turns me on about how its laid out. Its codebase is also a disgusting mess of non-native code like Java and Python which results in an objectively slower UI on Windows/Mac than Office.

>>52337076
I will take Python over VBA every day of the week.
Python has great set theory and string manipulation, you can do a lot of work with ease.
But VBA is used for everything so you just have to play along, it sucks really.

>>52337011
To defend LO, VBA excel macros are usually metastasizing spaghetti, you aren't really doing anyone a favor by creating something in it.

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>>52337076
Those icons look like they were flung straight out of Windows Vista in 2007. I literally would not be able to get any work done with such a cluttered, messy interface like that.

>>52334536
No, but there are alternatives to VBA

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>>52337122
sorry guys, wrong pic

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>>52337122
There are some other icon themes. But not all icons are changed here. Maybe I'll make a decent flt icon theme for LO and submit it.

>>52337101
The point is that if their translation from VBA to python messes something up, you're going to have to nose dive into a bunch of machine-generated spaghetti code to try to find whatever it fucked up. Not fun

>>52337101
Just use xlwings

>>52337082
>which results in an objectively slower UI on Windows/Mac than Office.
Confirmed for never having used office on Mac. LO works notably smoother than that crap Microsoft excreted.

>>52337011

>Doesn't have VBA.

This is the real problem with OpenOffice/LibreOffice being adopted. A great deal of Excel use revolves around having macros and shit set-up. As long as Microsoft keeps excel updates incremental and allows users to basically use the same VBA routines they've been using for the last decade, there is no real reason to update.

Also, the Excel API gives it serious points in its favor, at least in the enterprise area.

>>52337080
No it can't.

>>52337122

The rest of the world really doesn't care about your autism.

Someone should do a Sublime Text except for office suite apps: light, fast, capable, extendable, and even themeable. Sublime is great example of how to do cross-platform software right.

>>52337197
Microsoft shit on OS X is always abysmal because they have incredibly bad NIH syndrome and reinvent whole fleets of wheels instead of using native toolkits.

>>52337186
For personal use i would use Python but if i need to work with VBA crap then i would use Excel, there is no way around it.

>>52337219
>>This is the real problem with OpenOffice/LibreOffice being adopted. A great deal of Excel use revolves around having macros and shit set-up.
It extends to Word, etc too. I have an older friend who I tried to move over to LibreOffice, but in the end it didn't work because Writer botched the layout + formatting in one way or another on most of his Word documents.

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>>52337230
>durr gurr hurr good UIs don't matter guys

Shut the fuck up anon-kun, having an intuitive UI where you can instantly know where everything is and what everything does is probably one of the most important parts of software design. Discrediting proper UI designing as "autism" is why loonix is still <1% in the desktop markets.

I use Origin but that's mainly for graphing because excel likes to shit bricks at the data I use.

Originlab.

>>52337236
>Microsoft shit on OS X is always abysmal
Not only OSX, the same is true for the web applications. Everything is constantly crashing, lagging and "loading ...".

>>52337295
Microsoft software is crap on other platforms because it's hard to code user space scrollbars and font rendering.

>>52337080
I think they added that actually. I saw an AMA on Reddit with the excel team and this was mentioned. I'm pretty sure they said they added it a while ago.

>>52337219
The OpenXML API is still a fucking nightmare to work with though

>>52337278

Keep posting anime pictures, that completely offsets your autism with creepy pedophile tendencies.

>>52337327
Microsoft will implement the full OOXML standard, you can even use it in Office 2013 and i think 2016 uses it by default.

>>52337076
That literally looks worse than the picture you're responding to.

>>52337328
>wahh he posted anime on an anime image board
Go back to reddit, retard.

>>52337327

Yes, it is, however; it's got Microsoft backing it. Plus, it's been around for almost a decade and people have already learned it.

Remember, Office is an enterprise-funded software. In the enterprise world, they do NOT change shit unless the time/cost to change is heavily outweighed by it's benefits. Currently, nothing like that exists in the world of Office productivity software. The monopoly isn't helped by the fact that even Apple ultimately says "fuck it" to productivity software beyond High School essay writing, and just let's Microsoft develop the software they want.

In terms of basic office producity, sure, LibreOffice/OpenOffice COULD get you by, but when you're dealing with customers/clients who use exclusively Microsoft Offce (i.e. 99% of them) then you might run into some compatibility problems trying to share files between the suites. So enterprise says "Fuck it, just use Office."

As much as it sucks, Office is going to be here for a long ass time. You're better off getting friendly with that and just sucking it up, move your fight on to somewhere else.

>>52337398

You keep spouting memes, but it doesn't change the fact of my original post. The world, by and large, does not care about your autism.

>>52337352

Google. It's against rules of 4chan anyway to post that kind of stuff.

Either way, if you're wanting something up-to-date, can't help you anymore. Office 365 (current version of Office) is completely subscription based.

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>>52337278
>having an intuitive UI where you can instantly know where everything is and what everything does is probably one of the most important parts of software design
And Microsoft is failing horribly at it. Microsoft GUIs are "hiding away the useful stuff behind useless crap and animations" - the paradigm.

Just look at any ribbon application. Before ribbons you could just click on the toolbar and use what you wanted to use, OR use the menu bar. Now you have to switch through multiple "sliders" to get to the functionality you want. The buttons aren't even in a grid anymore, they are arbitrarily sized icons mushed together to create a mess like >>52337156

Then there is that whole cramming "forward", "backward" and "save" buttons into the title bar, cause thanks to the innovative ribbon you don't have buttons that are always visible.

Don't forget the microsoft classic, menus with over 40 mostly ungrouped settings where every single setting is just a whole line of text, which makes it impossible to find anything without reading all that text.

The interface of LO is objectively more user-friendly and accessible than that crap.

>>52337416
The days of the desktop based Office are numbered, MS is pushing the SAAS model really hard, Office 365 is where it's going, a cloud based solution.

>>52337471
style changes over time
minimal wasn't and will not always be desirable

>>52337060
>unity
wew lad

>>52337643
this. go ask /gd/

>>52337278
>Discrediting proper UI designing as "autism" is why loonix is still <1% in the desktop markets.

This is also why nobody takes STEMtards seriously.

>>52337540

Office 365 is basically the same shit, just with Cloud storage.

As much as I hate to say it, Steve Jobs is probably right when it comes to the traditional desktop PC. It's a lot like the pick-up truck. Once, it was everywhere, because if you used a automobile, you NEEDED the cargo to haul shit. Now, they're less common. They will always have a place, just not nearly as common as they once were.

>>52337643

This is true, design is a revolving door. I remember the era of Windows 95. At the time, minimalism was kind of a result of the limitations of hardware. You couldn't animate/show all those flashly/glossy graphics. Then once they were available, they were popular. Then, everyone grew tired of staring at hyper-gloss, so then we shifted back to minimalism. Give it a few more years and then we'll be back to incorporating hyper-gloss/flashy UI elements because the 'need for variety'.

It's a cycle that never ends.

>>52334536

I made my own, it uses picolisp and a file tree for data so you can embed stuff like other spreadsheets inside a cell since its just making a new directory in the db folder, though its pretty slow for >10k cells so am reworking that part.

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>>52337922
Forgot pic.

>>52337082
It's not the codebase, its gtk and gtk has always been horrible to Windows.

>>52337156
NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL UGLY 23

>>52337080
It's been able to do this since 2007

>>52337156
>>52337934
GET THE FUCKING PIC RIGHT OR DON'T FOROGT THE PIC

>>52337994

>>52338016

Forgot comment.

>>52337991
i know for a fact 2010 can't

>>52338035
FOROGY SHIT MYASS

>>52338141

using Excel 2013 as an example
open an excel spreadsheet. right click on Excel icon on windows bar, and click Excel 2013, opens in a seperate instance than the one already opened.

>>52337471
>Don't forget the microsoft classic, menus with over 40 mostly ungrouped settings where every single setting is just a whole line of text, which makes it impossible to find anything without reading all that text.
LO is literally the same fucking shitty cluttered and wasteful interface as the Office 97/2000 interface it copies

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>>52337907
I disagree. I actually think that Flat design is the "end-game" to UI design, at least until newer technologies come out like VR.

Take for example, this, or the icons in >>52337076, compared to >>52337156. The flat icons are very simple and easy ways to convey information. The detailed icons have more color and design, but that means it takes a bit more brain power to understand what it does, just by looking at the icon.

Flat design boils down the information to its very essence with nothing unnecessary. I'd definitely say its the best design method to convey any sort of information through imagery.

>>52334536
Google's works nicely. If you need more intense analysis l2database.

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>>52337922
Why a file tree and not sexprs? (Or, given the other comments in this thread, CSVs)

>>52337002
Those sound like the most boring magazines ever.

>>52340830
I find Google's almost-an-office-suite lacking in very particular but infuriating ways. That being said, I don't recall having any particular complaint about Sheets, other than that the whole concept of an in-browser spreadsheet editor is stupid.

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>>52334536
Quattro Pro is alright

>>52334536
thankfully, this is actually the easiest program to replicate. compared to things like powerpoint, this has several open source alternatives. personally, i'd say go openoffice.

Use Google's.

It works perfectly fine.

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I don't even understand what people do with Excel. It's apparently critically important for some, but all I actually see are middle management dudes twisting it in obscene directions to coerce it into outputting things that would have been trivial in more appropriate software.

I use Google spreadsheets for human data entry and csv/python for processing data on a large scale and I'm not sure if I'm missing something.

>>52334536
libreoffice is better, free, easier to use and can do more.

>>52334536
No, just like MS Visio. Nothing else works that well

>>52343504
Financial students/people only learn to work with MS Excel and mostly suck at programming. It's like learning monkeys to work with typewriters and calculators, they work but don't ask them to build it themselves.

>>52337011
>it doesn't have VBA

Thank fucking god. VBA macros are a very common source of malware.
When I'm installing MS Office for retards that's the first thing I uncheck (99.9% of them don't need it anyway).

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:^)

>>52344763
>It's like learning monkeys to work with typewriters and calculators, they work but don't ask them to build it themselves.

So...like with any other human?

if ms would just switch the scripting language to python it would be perfect

If only LibreOffice could handle Excel macros

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>>52345842
gnumeric anyone ?

>>52337320
Office, specifically, also uses alot of custom controls. I don't have alot of experience with Mac development (XCode is just awful) but the Windows common controls are really barebones. The .NET layer on top in WinForms is even worse; features are missing, bugs aren't fixed, and sometimes it's done screwy enough to introduce new bugs. Seriously, take a look at the .NET 4 source sometime, it's a fucking trainwreck.

>>52334536

> Free

Libre Office
Open Office
Gnumeric

> Massive

Javelin
Quantix
Anaplan

> Roll your own

Python + pyspread
Matlab

>>52346035

Can I just open a .xls file with it and have all macros work?

>>52346116
>can I
I suggest that you try

>>52346058
All code is a trainwreck.

>wants alternative
>must be an EXACT copy of the original
>exact copy
>alternative

>>52334536
>is there an alternative to being a spreadsheet puking corpo-cuck

I just wish libre office would use ribbons.

>>52343409
300MB of memory from a cold start with an empty spreadsheet is not acceptable. Web apps are shit.

>>52338479

Just to understand where I'm coming from. I love minimalistic/clean user interface elements. Always have, but I honestly believe that in a few years once people 'get tired' of looking at flat/minimalistic UI elements, you'll see software companies shifting back to busier UI elements in a face-value attempt to 'renew' the software.

Honestly, I hope I'm wrong.

Plebs, go learn R.

Google Sheets. It has replaced Excel as the de facto standard except in particular situations.

abacus

>>52349419
No. No it has not.

>>52337194
Has anyone ever used this? Seems actively developed, latest release was a few days ago. http://xlwings.org/

>>52349542
It has for anyone that actually does anything constructive.