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Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

microsoft.com

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Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#41

Post by chrispsn »

TomMarius wrote: post #40
chrispsn wrote: post #31

This is awesome (let expressions in formulas!!), but Mesh Spreadsheets has offered most of this for a couple of years, and in a free, open-source form. Specifically: - arrays and objects living in a cell - mix of spreadsheet and textual views - functions in spreadsheet cells, and running spreadsheets as a messaging service (as a lambda function / API) - dynamic array sizes We deliver this by offering a grid view of (…

The problem is that your software does not run on top of Excel. Nowadays it is not as much of a problem, but in the past, Excel was often the only software you could use to do something like this - enterprise computers used to be incredibly locked down.

It's true, not being part of Excel adds some friction.

Thankfully IE11 has Office interop via COM, so Mesh (or a site embedding Mesh) can talk to existing spreadsheet investments.

And on the locked-down front, Mesh doesn't require IT permissions to run (unless JS is disabled in your browser).

Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#42

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

Excel is probably the most successful programming environment in the history of computers. It is great that instead just trying to tell all those people that they need to migrate to something else, and path forward is being provided.

Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#43

Post by quickthrower2 »

stcredzero wrote: post #16
leibnitz27 wrote: post #4

Banks do crazy stuff with excel. I embedded a higher order functional language natively in excel 10 years back.... http://cufp.org/2009/fmd-functional-development-excel.html

This sounds like a joke, but I actually met a guy in the early 90's who wrote a Quicken/Microsoft Money competitor as a series of VB Excel macros, who then joined in on the Microsoft anti-trust suit, when Microsoft made moves to try and squash him.

YNAB started off as a spreadsheet for sale.

Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#44

Post by quickthrower2 »

thibautg wrote: post #2

The ideal spreadsheet should be a mix of Excel, Geogebra, reactive Jupyter Notebook (like ObservableHQ or Vue.js computed properties), programmable in Python, C#, JavaScript and/or other languages with the ability to embed third-party widgets like maps or custom charts. And decent data connectors with SQL-like query syntax (including JOINs).

Maybe a spreadsheet that runs JS and and NPM. that would be pretty flexible

Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#45

Post by ramraj07 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #7
leibnitz27 wrote: post #4

Banks do crazy stuff with excel. I embedded a higher order functional language natively in excel 10 years back.... http://cufp.org/2009/fmd-functional-development-excel.html

Banks, insurers, accountants; I know a company with 100M euro rev per year that runs entirely on Excel with VBA. Their office car park gate is opened, closed and managed with Excel. It sounds crazy but the CTO is a cofounder and he found it is much cheaper to just do everthing that way. They have been running like that for over 20 years.

One possibility is this - the people who mess with Excel VBA are generally very smart folk who just never went too techy, but then got really good at Excel and just learned vba as the next logical step. That means the code might not be kosher but it will be thoughtfully written and encompassing all the practical use cases.

Contrast that with a 20something can grad who while competent isn't as smart as that non tech guy, and has indoctrinated the cs way of doing things w.r.t. test coverage and unit tests but often will lack the insight of what the program is actually trying to do. Frankly I would also like to choose the former than the latter.

Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#46

Post by dustingetz »

thibautg wrote: post #2

The ideal spreadsheet should be a mix of Excel, Geogebra, reactive Jupyter Notebook (like ObservableHQ or Vue.js computed properties), programmable in Python, C#, JavaScript and/or other languages with the ability to embed third-party widgets like maps or custom charts. And decent data connectors with SQL-like query syntax (including JOINs).

http://hyperfiddle.net

Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#48

Post by dvdhsu »

thibautg wrote: post #2

The ideal spreadsheet should be a mix of Excel, Geogebra, reactive Jupyter Notebook (like ObservableHQ or Vue.js computed properties), programmable in Python, C#, JavaScript and/or other languages with the ability to embed third-party widgets like maps or custom charts. And decent data connectors with SQL-like query syntax (including JOINs).

Hi — that’s what we’re working on! Retool (https://tryretool.com) is similar to Excel, except the cells are themselves React components. And you can refer to other components inside the props for each component. You can pull in data either via SQL, APIs, or any other data source we support. Everything inside Retool is also JavaScript, so it’s pretty hackable.

If you’ve got any feedback, please let me know! I’m david@. Thanks!

Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#49

Post by [deleted] »

tedmiston wrote: post #12
leibnitz27 wrote: post #4

Banks do crazy stuff with excel. I embedded a higher order functional language natively in excel 10 years back.... http://cufp.org/2009/fmd-functional-development-excel.html

This is really interesting. I wonder if some people that did this have migrated towards hybrid models? Particularly I'm thinking of something like Jupyter notebooks where charts, tables, and code can live side by side and be iteratively developed in a really tight REPL feedback loop as well.

[deleted]

Re: Applying programming language research ideas to transform spreadsheets

#50

Post by snazz »

chrispsn wrote: post #31

This is awesome (let expressions in formulas!!), but Mesh Spreadsheets has offered most of this for a couple of years, and in a free, open-source form. Specifically: - arrays and objects living in a cell - mix of spreadsheet and textual views - functions in spreadsheet cells, and running spreadsheets as a messaging service (as a lambda function / API) - dynamic array sizes We deliver this by offering a grid view of (…

I had never heard of Mesh before. It looks very cool. I wonder if the concept would work well on mobile devices (unfortunately the editor itself doesn’t, as it stands now).
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