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IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

ironcalc.com

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Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#81

Post by fsckboy »

ninalanyon wrote: post #26
fsckboy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

backend does not imply server to me, it implies software that does the calculating engine work and does not concern itself with display refresh.

Surely that's background not backend.

what's the backend of a spreadsheet engine going to be doing? updating the datastructures of the spreadsheet.

is it going to be local or remote? that's not part of the question.

is it foreground or background? that's an implementation choice. apple II, yeah, everything freezes while it recalcs. windows? recalcs when it can, don't let the mouse freeze.

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#82

Post by Aeolun »

eointierney wrote: post #76

Congratulations, this is awesome. One of those "why hasn't someone done this already?" projects. I can see this becoming transformative and superseding Excel, which is a bold claim to make. But this is compliant (with Excel), performant, extensible, free, and in-browser. This could easily become almost an emacs-level editor. Think of the interfaces that could be built to this in this? I'll be sharing this with every…

> One of those "why hasn't someone done this already?" projects.

I think this one is fairly clear. It’s because it’s a massive amount of work with a not necessarily large payoff for yourself?

I think some of these basically get made when someone gets too annoyed something similar doesn’t exist.

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#83

Post by mgkimsal »

twojacobtwo wrote: post #71
nhatcher wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are curious, I just made the analytics public: https://plausible.io/ironcalc.com I think more than one folk in HN might be interested. All traffic is because of this post. I had no visitors as of today. This was work in progress :)

Sweet, it's basically data on HN users then. Only 13.4% of HN readers use Firefox. For shame. But seriously, it's interesting that safari is top by quite a margin.

I have to imagine most of that safari is mobile safari / iPhone traffic?

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#84

Post by mgkimsal »

Can't tell by the docs (but I've not dug in much yet) but... @nhatcher... here's a use case question.

Admins use the ironcalc UI to create their formulas. Is there a way to get those formulas to a backend and run the calcs on the server itself (separate from the user's browser) to get results based on input from other sources?

The UI half looks great so far. I have a colleague I was going to recommend this to, but they more need the 'run the formulas on the server' part more than anything else. They've got some custom Rust stuff running already, but having admins come up with their advanced formulas, then translating that to server code - that takes the time. It seems they may be able to use this to have this handle both ends of the workload, without the translation layer.

Is that something supported, or even feasible?

Thanks!

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#85

Post by wuming2 »

It’s a great ambition to replace Excel and many went down this path before. Congratulations to even attempting to achieve it and going this far to do it.

Excel compatibility, when fully realized, will remove the major obstacle to adoption. Given the current stronghold Excel has on the market.

Once that is achieved do you plan to offer a transition to more modern forms of calculations as vectors and arrays formula panels together with frozen sheets of raw data and output? Thus separating logic and model.

Also when your solution adoption will have grown much larger you should learn from the experiences Bavaria and CERN went through. Microsoft stronghold more often than not has nothing to do with technical prowess.

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#86

Post by negoutputeng »

nhatcher wrote: post #5

Hey! This is my project! Amazed to see this here. I'll try to answer questions people might have

nice project ! and attempt to modernize the spreadsheet tech stack. be warned though, that the feature-set of the modern spreadsheet is gigantic, with tentacles in hundreds of nooks and corners. Any attempt to play catch-up is a losing proposition. Hence you could position it so as not to directly compete with excel - in areas that are new or emerging.

trivia: js based https://ethercalc.net/ is in turn is derived from https://github.com/DanBricklin/socialcalc written by the spreadsheet inventor dan bricklin

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#87

Post by evanjrowley »

wuming2 wrote: post #85

It’s a great ambition to replace Excel and many went down this path before. Congratulations to even attempting to achieve it and going this far to do it. Excel compatibility, when fully realized, will remove the major obstacle to adoption. Given the current stronghold Excel has on the market. Once that is achieved do you plan to offer a transition to more modern forms of calculations as vectors and arrays formula pan…

>Also when your solution adoption will have grown much larger you should learn from the experiences Bavaria and CERN went through. Microsoft stronghold more often than not has nothing to do with technical prowess.

Can you elaborate on those experiences?

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#88

Post by mhh__ »

eointierney wrote: post #76

Congratulations, this is awesome. One of those "why hasn't someone done this already?" projects. I can see this becoming transformative and superseding Excel, which is a bold claim to make. But this is compliant (with Excel), performant, extensible, free, and in-browser. This could easily become almost an emacs-level editor. Think of the interfaces that could be built to this in this? I'll be sharing this with every…

Why would there be any reason for this to kill excel? Seriously you should try to replace excel entirely rather than merely get a better version of it. If you want to get a better excel just buy excel and actually learn how to use it.
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