Can you give a more detailed description of what you were trying? I can't know for sure, but it sounds like Excel can easily handle what you've described, if you use it right.
>the entire paradigm revolves around knowing the shape of your data in advance.
How exactly do you program without knowing the shape of your data in advance? You need to know your database columns, or your JSON schema, etc.
>(I was using Google Sheets, but I don't think Excel would have been much different).
It would have been very different, because Excel has tables and Powerquery and Google Sheets doesn't.
>since it's a variable number of rows returned, it is difficult to then operate on that data without filling your formulas down for some indeterminate number of rows.
Were you using dynamic array formulae? They can handle the old problem of needing to fill down formulae to an arbitrary depth. Or again, tables.
Programmers routinely underestimate Excel. Unlike most Microsoft products, it has improved year on year over the past few decades. There are heaps of great power-user features they keep introducing. The skill ceiling is very high .. not as high as proper software engineering, but still damned high.
It also really annoys me when I see Linux/FOSS partisans tell Windows normies "oh you can do everything you can do in Excel in LibreOffice Calc" -- no you fucking well cannot. (And I use Linux on my personal computers full time).
>the entire paradigm revolves around knowing the shape of your data in advance.
How exactly do you program without knowing the shape of your data in advance? You need to know your database columns, or your JSON schema, etc.
>(I was using Google Sheets, but I don't think Excel would have been much different).
It would have been very different, because Excel has tables and Powerquery and Google Sheets doesn't.
>since it's a variable number of rows returned, it is difficult to then operate on that data without filling your formulas down for some indeterminate number of rows.
Were you using dynamic array formulae? They can handle the old problem of needing to fill down formulae to an arbitrary depth. Or again, tables.
Programmers routinely underestimate Excel. Unlike most Microsoft products, it has improved year on year over the past few decades. There are heaps of great power-user features they keep introducing. The skill ceiling is very high .. not as high as proper software engineering, but still damned high.
It also really annoys me when I see Linux/FOSS partisans tell Windows normies "oh you can do everything you can do in Excel in LibreOffice Calc" -- no you fucking well cannot. (And I use Linux on my personal computers full time).