When Microsoft created its Excel spreadsheet software it created limits as to just how big a spreadsheet could be.
Specifically, according to Microsoft’s own documentation, they set the following limits:
1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns
That doesn’t feel daft to me. Why would anyone ever want so many columns on a spreadsheet? The last column is labelled XFD if you’re curious.
And yes, if you think of any spreadsheet you’ve ever used in your working life, you would certainly anticipate that you might need many more rows than you would need columns.
But those are clearly still huge numbers. If you wanted to collect data on anything that came anywhere close to those limits you would probably want to use proper database software, not an Excel speadsheet, right?
Not so, it would seem, when Dido Harding is in charge of the UK’s Test & Trace operation.
Some 16,000 Coronavirus cases went missing after the Excel spreadsheet they were being recorded in reached its maximum limit, and did not allow the automated process to add any more names.
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As a result, it’s possible that some people who might have been infected by COVID-19 may not have been properly traced in a timely fashion.
WTAF is any track and trace data doing anywhere near a spreadsheet? If you designed a process to m ..
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