[Discuss] Frustration with SQL and Spreadsheets

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

On 4/15/26 8:14 AM, Jim Garrett wrote:
> Forcing columns to have a specific type would improve the world 
> enormously, while annoying the hell out of many people collecting data.

So much scientific data has been lost over the years because Excel 
inferred types, converted raw data inappropriately to, say, a date, and 
destroyed a datum. Rinse and repeat and only discover the problem weeks 
later when it can no longer be fixed. (I'm sure plenty of business data 
has been lost that way, too, but those folk are going to be quieter 
about their blunders.)

Figuring out how to help the user navigate this without being too 
annoying is a difficult and wonderful UI design problem, one that is 
completely independent of today's "design" and "UX" and 
anything-can-be-skinned-to-fix-anything nonsense.

-kb