Excel Guideline #07: Use Consistent Labels

Hi Mateo. I bet you thought this was the least controversial of your guidelines! Yet I could argue that the use of such labelling contravenes the spirit of spreadsheets. Dan Bricklin in his 2016 TED Talk, gave as the reason that names were not defined to identify variables, "it would be tedious". https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_bricklin_meet_the_inventor_of_the_electronic_spreadsheet?language=en Dan sought the immediacy of a point and click solution but, if declaring a variable is 'tedious', how come annotating each cell is any less tedious? If a sheet is sufficiently small and temporary one might get away without names and labels, after all, no one used to label the M+ key on a pocket calculator. The operator simply remembered what was stored there. Once the problem grows however, I would agree with your statement "Numbers without meaning are worthless". Where I tend to create dissent is when I go on to assert that every use of direct cell reference (A7 etc.) should be regarded a latent error. Data should be referenced in terms of its significance within the business domain; its location cannot be regarded as 'meaning' . Maybe you will return to defined Names and structured referencing in a later Excel Guideline?