“Newton had a great time for a long time with his description [of gravity], and then at some point it was clear that that description was fraying at the edges, and then Einstein offered a more complete version,” As for flat spreadsheets, they serve their purpose just like any other tool. I don’t think I heard people complain about spreadsheets for dealing with flat data, the same way no one complains about hammers to deal with nails. If we’re trying to deal with interconnected and enterprise resources we don’t maintain those resources in Excel. We store them in Enterprise Resource Planning software or build relational databases (which are as old as gravity). Nothing is wrong with spreadsheets, they’re the sweetest way to deal with quick data until we use them for things they can’t do.