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Re:Ask HN: What are your favorite examples of elegant software? by throwawayboise on Monday May 02, 2022 @02:04PM (#31238594)
Yes, I think maybe the original VisiCalc was elegant, even if far less featureful. It was a game-changer, one of the first general purpose PC applications that let users do row/column based computing without programming, and along with word processing was the software that underpinned the explosion of PC use in business.
Re:Ask HN: What are your favorite examples of elegant software? by noizejoy on Monday May 02, 2022 @08:03PM (#31242690)
I taught Lotus 1-2-3 for a while, so probably had well above average familiarity with it.

And then in 1987, I opened Excel 1.0 on a Mac SE for the first time. Was blown away at how elegant that felt. Later versions seemed to loose that original elegance as features were added.