[Discuss] Frustration with SQL and Spreadsheets

[jimgarrett at posteo.net (Jim Garrett)]

On 4/15/26 11:00, markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
>> markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
>>> One of the things I have to do a lot is transfer data to and from
>>> spreadsheets. Its so frustrating that they are essentially the same
>>> concept: an X/Y grid of cells is virtually identical to rows and
>>> columns.
>>>
>>> We have had databases and spreadsheets coexisting for over 40 years why
>>> hasn't anyone merged these two things? A "spreadsheet" program could
>>> very
>>> easily be set on top of something like SQLite.
>>>
>>> Does anyone know of such a spreadsheet?
>>
>>
>> It was invented in 1984:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javelin_Software
> 
> Was it based on a SQL database, I don't see that.
>>

As a statistician who often receives spreadsheets as data sources, 
spreadsheets have become almost free-text platforms.  I've seen data 
encoded as text, a mixture of numbers and text, color-coding, and even 
comments.  SQL databases, Javelin, and every statistics package have the 
requirement that the data in each column conform to a specified data type.

Forcing columns to have a specific type would improve the world 
enormously, while annoying the hell out of many people collecting data.

Incidentally, another issue I've run into when using Excel as a data 
source is that if you export to CSV, it quietly assumes you want the 
data as it's showing it, with floating-points rounded, rather than the 
original data.  This violates so many basic data-handling practices....

-- 
Kind regards,

Jim Garrett

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