Question
Why do many people still use Excel as a pseudo "database"?
Answer
The premise is misguided. A spreadsheet is not a bad 'pseudo-database' anymore than a database is a bad 'pseudo spreadsheet.'
One is a workspace for humans, the other is a store for programmatic manipulation. VB macros blur the distinction only slightly.
A db is terrible or completely useless for 90% of the things I use spreadsheets for. If you have a small scale but structurally complex dataset Excel can produce answers while a db bureaucrat is still obsessing over the right data model. The ability to run computations on the data and visualize the results immediately don't even exist intrinsically in db software. You'd have to build a software app to do some things people routinely do with spreadsheets, and that's simply silly when you expect to run the model 3-4 times.
To add a clarification, this is the part of the linked article that raises red flags for me:
I would argue the opposite, that this symptom is probably NOT a sign that the information should be stored in a database or web application. Productizing every ad hoc business process is a very dangerous. You need some work practice and ethnographic data to back up the claim that your apparently more "rational" and clean-edged solution works better than such jury-rigged solutions.
One is a workspace for humans, the other is a store for programmatic manipulation. VB macros blur the distinction only slightly.
A db is terrible or completely useless for 90% of the things I use spreadsheets for. If you have a small scale but structurally complex dataset Excel can produce answers while a db bureaucrat is still obsessing over the right data model. The ability to run computations on the data and visualize the results immediately don't even exist intrinsically in db software. You'd have to build a software app to do some things people routinely do with spreadsheets, and that's simply silly when you expect to run the model 3-4 times.
To add a clarification, this is the part of the linked article that raises red flags for me:
It would be a fair statement to claim that "An alarmingly large number of individuals use Microsoft Excel to store non-numeric arrays of information that should probably be stored in a database / be created by a simple web application"
I would argue the opposite, that this symptom is probably NOT a sign that the information should be stored in a database or web application. Productizing every ad hoc business process is a very dangerous. You need some work practice and ethnographic data to back up the claim that your apparently more "rational" and clean-edged solution works better than such jury-rigged solutions.