Spreadsheets: Functional Programming for the Masses (2014) [slides]

Re:Spreadsheets: Functional Programming for the Masses (2014... by lewisjoe on Tuesday November 10, 2020 @06:52AM (#25044934)

I've always held Spreadsheets as the most underrated low-code platform. Here's a paradigm that enables users to build calculating machines without actually coding, yet the recent trend is such that we try to build visual-blocks based programming tools and call it no-code, but all the user does is deal with visual blocks instead of (sometimes more efficient) text statements.

Also red[1] is an interesting programming language that connects its reactive paradigms to how spreadsheets work.

[1] https://www.red-lang.org/2016/07/native-reactive-spreadsheet...

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Re:Spreadsheets: Functional Programming for the Masses (2014... by asdfman123 on Tuesday November 10, 2020 @10:16AM (#25046840)

I'd say it's less that spreadsheets are underrated and more that they're so ubiquitous that people don't even think about them.

Basically "low code" solutions are meant to improve upon the spreadsheet and fill the gap between that and software.

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Re:Spreadsheets: Functional Programming for the Masses (2014... by breck on Tuesday November 10, 2020 @11:16AM (#25047620)

I think this is a good summary. Only MS and Goog truly know, but I've seen decent published estimates that Excel + Google Sheets have 1B+ users (https://medium.com/grid-spreadsheets-run-the-world).

So "low code" has been with us since the 1980's.

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Re:Spreadsheets: Functional Programming for the Masses (2014... by thedudeabides5 on Tuesday November 10, 2020 @06:44PM (#25053650)

Don't forget about VisiCalc! The Apple IIs killer app!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

Data tools that don't play well with spreadsheets are just fighting their massive potential user base.

Why not build something that helps the poor bastards working in spreadsheets till 3am, rather than telling them 'oh if you only had a couple hundred hours to learn pandas (and command line, and a bit of linux, and maybe some network infrastructure classes), you would be fine!"

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Re:Spreadsheets: Functional Programming for the Masses (2014... by jgalt212 on Tuesday November 10, 2020 @10:22AM (#25046915)

My favorite off-label use of spreadsheets is to compose parameterized SQL. Of course, if our data models were better there would be less of a need for parameterized SQL. :)

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Re:Spreadsheets: Functional Programming for the Masses (2014... by anitil on Wednesday November 11, 2020 @12:49AM (#25055852)

I am really curious about both sides of your comment, but I don't know where to start asking. How do you write parametrized SQL in a spreadsheet? And what is wrong with our data models? What even _are_ our data models?

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