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A comment on Coda, a “next-generation spreadsheet” – from rows and columns to custom apps. Parent comment

Re:Coda, a “next-generation spreadsheet” – from rows and col... by pavlov on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @03:06PM (#15544316)
Yes, clicking on "this thing right here!" is a powerful way for ordinary users to create references. It shouldn't be underestimated.

Programmers are so used to having to name things that we don't see the mental overhead of using names. A named cell is conceptually a pointer -- you can change what it points to (by giving the same name to some other cell instead), and if you delete the referent, it can point to nothing. That kind of invisible indirection is not easy for non-programmers.

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Re:Coda, a “next-generation spreadsheet” – from rows and col... by DonHopkins on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @09:16PM (#15546589)
An important thing about cell references that makes them almost but not quite entirely unlike pointers is that they can be relative, absolute, or mixed.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Switch-between-rela...

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Re:Coda, a “next-generation spreadsheet” – from rows and col... by pavlov on Wednesday October 25, 2017 @02:17AM (#15547920)
Aren’t named cells/columns a category of their own? They’re not relative nor absolute, but resolved by the name binding that exists at evaluation time.
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