for Joe Ham, there is no need to get a costly license and costly hardware set up for a relational database, Excel works just fine. plus, if you goof, but were smart enough to work on a renamed copy of the core data, close enough to bulletproof. assuming you don't hit the limit of 65536 elements.
That is only the tip of the iceberg.
Beside the 65,536 line limit, everything from unwieldiness, security issues, and inability to perform analytics makes it useless as a database.
It cannot be used for Collaboration to maintain integrity, a single, master copy has to be maintained. This restricts access to that master to one person at a time requiring “checking in” and “checking out” of a document. The result — slowing down process and hampering productivity. Furthermore, user error can corrupt the master copy, for example an overwritten formula, and lacking any effective audit and history tracking, hidden errors often arise. These can cause disastrous miscalculations. Excellent for those looking to sabotage operations.
Revision history is impossible to maintain. Spreadsheets passed from user to user for sequential updating or copied to multiple people for refreshing. This requires consolidating the documents, which is another time consuming, and error prone.
Excel is beset with security shortfalls making Hackers, Pirates, and Thieves dreams come true. Extremely easy for those intent on extracting the core logic and proprietary data, putting critical intellectual property at risk. What’s more, users are forced to share documents via methods like emails which are easily saved on portable storage devices, and that makes it even more susceptible to finding their way into the wrong hands.
Excell is highly manual and extremely unwieldy. Extremely easy to input errors that derail things. Just one typo could massively alter the value intended to be put into the spreadsheet, which can have huge financial repercussions worth millions or even billions of dollars. This problem grows exponentially when errors are propagated, as other users' access and use the flawed database. Perfect tool for sabotage.
With that said, Excel is the perfect tool for hams.
