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Spreadsheet Blamed For UK Rail Bid Fiasco

Posted by timothy on from the spreadsheet-fiasco-is-redundant dept.

First time accepted submitter Bruce66423 writes "As a sometime computer programmer who was always very sniffy about the quality of the stuff being knocked up by amateurs aka power users, the current claim that it was a messed up spreadsheet that caused a multi-million pound fiasco is very satisfying. 'The key mechanism... mixed up real and inflated financial figures and contained elements of double counting.'"

1 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ban power users! by KingTank · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Get all those stupid computers off people's desks! Things were much better when you had to go to a programmer in order to get software to do anything!

    And (not incidentally) it would eliiminate all the productivity that's lost to Slashdot!

    Your sarcasm is unwarranted. This is a nice story for us programmers because it's just the kind of anecdote that makes businesses seriously consider hiring more professional programmers. Nobody is suggesting you need custom software for everything.