Back in high school, there was a class that I signed up for in the business education department. Yes, my high school had a business education department.

I don’t remember the name of the class, but the entire semester was about learning Microsoft Excel (97). It probably sounded like an easy grade at the time, and I had already taken keyboarding class.

Out in the real world, there are few people that have to work with a computer that have never used Excel. For most it’s function is to store long lists and basic record keeping. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of today’s Excel users don’t even know what an Excel function is. For me, learning how to use functions to manipulate the data I was working with started teaching me to think like a web developer.

SUM, IF, OR, VLOOKUP…

There are over 300 built in functions you can use in Excel. Throw a few parentheses in the mix, construct a series of “If…Then” statements, and there are more than enough ways for BP to figure out exactly how many gallons of oil are leaking out of the Gulf. Someone should tell them what a macro is.

I actually enjoyed playing around with the different functions available. Yes, I am a computer geek. Simple computing tasks could become automated, and computed results could be used in other functions, etc. A change in one cell could impact multiple worksheets, and one misplaced character could wreck the whole thing.

… to HTML

Learning how to use the various functions is a lot like coding a web site. The data within the cells is the content. The functions are like the back-end html that the developer builds to display the content properly. And, one misplaced character could wreck the whole thing.

I’m not saying that you can jump from being your office’s Excel guru to being a web developer, but it got me headed in that direction. Well, that and the fact that the next semester I enrolled in a class called “Web Development”. At least I think that’s what the name was.