Live data from Hacker News

IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

ironcalc.com

91–100 of 238 posts

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#91

It's a cool project, but wow is the top of the page just absolute buzzword salad! > The democratization of spreadsheets > Empowering Everyone with Advanced, Open-Source Spreadsheet Solutions It's a really fast spreadsheet engine that runs entirely in the browser and is fully open source. That's all the sales pitch I'd need, but I'm a developer... So, serious question: who is this kind of marketing targeting?

I think using the word "democratization" is the main issue, how does that even make sense in software? Who is doing the voting? You just "vote" by forking...? I don't get it, you also "vote" by using Microsoft Excel.

'Democratization' IME usually refers to the foundation of democracy, equality in rights, freedom, and opportunity. It's something for the masses, for the people.

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#92
post #5

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

Cool project!

Do you have a detailed list tracking compatibility with Excel?

Do you have any great ideas where you can surpass it (in one way you can use yours without UI)?

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#93

It's a cool project, but wow is the top of the page just absolute buzzword salad! > The democratization of spreadsheets > Empowering Everyone with Advanced, Open-Source Spreadsheet Solutions It's a really fast spreadsheet engine that runs entirely in the browser and is fully open source. That's all the sales pitch I'd need, but I'm a developer... So, serious question: who is this kind of marketing targeting?

I'm a software developer with extremely bad marketing skills... This project targets both end spreadsheet users and developers. In its first an engine (a Rust crate) then a full fledged product. FWIW, I'm over them moon this project is getting some traction :)

This probably sounds daft, but I was trying to figure out on the site what platform it ran on.

It doesn't seem to say "in browser" - so I'm wondering if it's Windows or Mac or ...?

Since it is in-browser there's then no detail on what the scope is - where are the spreadsheets stored? How are they shared? Do I host it on my server? Are they stored on your server ? Can I embed it on an existing page? Can I update cells via JavaScript? Or websockets?

And so on.

Some of the above is inferable from the comments here, but not all.

Congratulations on a cool project - but you may want to "set the scene " as it were for prospective users.

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#95
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think using the word "democratization" is the main issue, how does that even make sense in software? Who is doing the voting? You just "vote" by forking...? I don't get it, you also "vote" by using Microsoft Excel.

'Democratization' IME usually refers to the foundation of democracy, equality in rights, freedom, and opportunity. It's something for the masses, for the people.

Yes I know what the word is being used these days for but it doesn't make sense. Democracy does not inherently have anything to do with these additional (also vague) terms.

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#96
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating parsing of expressions with operator precedence parsers (aka Pratt parsers). IronCalc uses a recursive descent parser, and Pratt parsers are an optimization of recursive descent parsers. Pratt parsers have one function that implements all precedence levels, while recursive descent parsers have one function per precedence level, but they contain basically the same logic. Source: 20 years ago I conver…

Operator precedence is an addition to parsing of expressions. Both of them is needed if you accept "2 + 1" kind of expression. "2 + 2 * 2" must be evaluated like "2 + (2 * 2)". Only expression parsing will evaluate them like 8.

You can choose: learn recursive descent parsing, or keep on being confidently incorrect.

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#97
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better not use popular toolchains then: https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/New_C_Parser https://clang.llvm.org/features.html I think this is a quite popular approach for multiple reasons. That being said, tree sitter uses GLR.

There is no recursion involved in parsing. You keep a stack for the tree.

Recursive descent uses the processor stack as the parsing stack.

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#98
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Democratization' IME usually refers to the foundation of democracy, equality in rights, freedom, and opportunity. It's something for the masses, for the people.

Yes I know what the word is being used these days for but it doesn't make sense. Democracy does not inherently have anything to do with these additional (also vague) terms.

Democracy doesn't have anything to do with "equality in rights, freedom, and opportunity"? That is the point of and foundation of democracy - no democracy without them. It's incredible that people are so anxious to destroy freedom and humanitarianism (why?) that they adopt an obviously false history.

Those have long been believed to be the foundations of democracy; you might have heard this one, which founded one democracy:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ...

That also says governments exist - their reason for being - is to protect those things you deny are relevant.

Then from the French Revolution, and now France's national motto: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. "Liberté, Égalité, and Fraternité are fundamental values that define French society, and democratic life in general."

https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/liberte-egalite-fraterni...

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, ...

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, ...

Article 01: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. ...

https://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#99
post #5

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

Nice :) You've added xlsx format to export. Is it legally allowed?

Yes, it is an open format:

https://ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/st...

Re: IronCalc – Open-Source Spreadsheet Engine

#100
post #9
post #5

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

Thanks for your great work! I’d love to hear your thoughts on a recent “brainstorm” a few of us had here on HN about spreadsheets. How does this resonate with you? [1][2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42027356 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41970554

Hyperfiddle and Quadratic implement some of the items on your wishlist (richer data types, modern programming languages, working with arrays, better connectivity to data tools).
Post reply on HN