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One thing I'm thankful for is my Excel skill.

Why do I even have Excel skill? Because of the garbage reports and data that I was pulling out of databases. I spent YEARS exporting data-dumps and cleansing them in Excel to help customers whose lives were turned inside out because of garbage in databases.

Not a negative word should be uttered about Excel until you can guarantee that databases and software are pristine and never fail due to human error.

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I agree the excel is great for cleansing or processing small/medium sized data sets. It's great for comparing two or more data sets too. The thing that makes it great for these things is visual editing, and the ease of setting up formulas. This also makes it dangerous in business critical processes because it allows too great a surface for mistakes.

There's also the issue that they're often set up as an ad hoc analysis only to become a process carried out on a schedule. This gets particularly bad when macros are involved - especially when they're password protected.

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