Comments on: Tables Vs. XML; the data lingua franca debate.

By: Excel in Data | Gobán Saor

Excel in Data | Gobán Saor — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:44:36 +0000

[...] recognised this and has over the years improved Excel’s ability to handle and pivot lists (aka tables, the primary data artefacts of business). Excel’s PivotTable is undoubtedly the world’s primary BI [...]

By: SAX and Bugs and XBRooL « Gobán Saor

SAX and Bugs and XBRooL « Gobán Saor — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:27:09 +0000

[...] will be to beef-up xLite’s XML capability, which, with me being on the table side of the “Tables Vs. XML; the data lingua franca debate“, will involve getting the data into a relational form at the earliest possible moment. For [...]

By: Excel as the iPod of Downloaded Data « Gobán Saor

Excel as the iPod of Downloaded Data « Gobán Saor — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:12:35 +0000

[...] XML or JSON, just good old, simple as it can get, lists. (I’ve written about this before in Tables Vs XML, the data lingua franca debate.) User generated tables downloaded from great list-generating beasts such as ERP or CRM systems are [...]

By: TAG Cubes – SQLite Star Query Part III « Gobán Saor

TAG Cubes – SQLite Star Query Part III « Gobán Saor — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:23:06 +0000

[...] other formula, but data prep activities often require sequential procedural logic, xLiteScript is a table-oriented scripting mechanism offering basic flow-control [...]

By: Python the new VBA ? « Gobán Saor

Python the new VBA ? « Gobán Saor — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:17:52 +0000

[...] I’m at heart a table-oriented programmer, and I, like Picalo’s author Conan Albrecht, believe “data analysis is best done through scripting”; but not just data analysis, the T in ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) and the I in DI (Data Integration) and SI (Systems Interfacing) also benefit from a scripting approach. [...]

By: Google Spreadsheets - ETL tool « Gobán Saor

Google Spreadsheets - ETL tool « Gobán Saor — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:50:27 +0000

[...] the most common source of tabular data on the web, the HTML table; something to do with the great XML/Tables divide I [...]

By: Proto « Gobán Saor

Proto « Gobán Saor — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:59:38 +0000

[...] looking at Proto one of the things that struck me was the lack of a relational join feature. In a previous post I explained that other mashup tools tend to use XML as their “pipe transport protocol” [...]

By: Byron

Byron — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 20:59:51 +0000

Tom – once again, thanks for the insightful reiteration of what we see to be a major usability issue with ‘mashup’ platforms. Namely, in our 2005 beta release of Proto, real power users were turned off because we _didn’t_ have any scripting / VBA facility. The prospect of learning a new vocabulary to do what used to be a 10 line VBA script was described as ‘working with my hands tied’.

As such, we think think that VBA makes it easier for ‘non-programmer’ programmers (the 15 million or so power users worldwide) to get into the mix. And because these people can wrap up the ‘hard parts’ into components, they will in turn make it easier for everyone else. Thus appealing to and supporting the scripters out there (with VBA) is essential to completing the ecosystem that will support the rest of the power users.

So by some seemingly backwards logic and some real world experience supporting the argument – we agree with you that VBA actually lowers the bar overall.