WYSIWYG, in every sense of the expression. There's no written abstraction. You just see the data (and depending on how things are structured, sometimes the intermediate steps getting that data from point A to point B).
With code, you type the abstractions while imagining the data in your head -- and then check to see if the final result is the right one. The average user will usually litter the code with debug print statements to help understanding what's going on live
With Excel, you live in the runtime and you stare at the results of your "code" all of the time. The abstractions and the links between steps of the process either live in your head (because you know how that financial model works) or are buried in formulas in the most asynchronous of layouts (cell A1 may be the result of a calculation in cell Z99, for instance)
With code, you type the abstractions while imagining the data in your head -- and then check to see if the final result is the right one. The average user will usually litter the code with debug print statements to help understanding what's going on live
With Excel, you live in the runtime and you stare at the results of your "code" all of the time. The abstractions and the links between steps of the process either live in your head (because you know how that financial model works) or are buried in formulas in the most asynchronous of layouts (cell A1 may be the result of a calculation in cell Z99, for instance)