The one thing SQL can't do that Excel can: a calculation cell, as in, one that s... | Hacker News

Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit

		DiabloD3 on Aug 24, 2016 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Gene name errors are widespread in the scientific ... The one thing SQL can't do that Excel can: a calculation cell, as in, one that starts with =. Yes, I can probably code something entirely in SQL to do it, but it will not be portable across SQL implementations; and yes, I can code that as a variable in my program... but neither of them seem to be as fluent as the way Excel does it. I wouldn't use Excel for prod, but it comes in handy for a lot of small dumb shit purely because of =.

Someone on Aug 24, 2016 [–]

Many databases support virtual columns (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_column)

If portability is really important, I think your best bet would be a view that adds the calculated columns.

Unfortunately, that's still not as easy as using Excel, by a long stretch.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact