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I read the whole thesis, because on Saturdays I read papers, thats just how I roll. He does a great job identifying the problems (especially in finance) but his

I read the whole thesis, because on Saturdays I read papers, thats just how I roll. He does a great job identifying the problems (especially in finance) but his only source referencing Prior Work is Endnote #7 and that's an Excel resource. This is why learning the history of your field is so important. Lotus Improv(1) was the "power-users" 1-2-3 (god I'm dating myself, aren't I). Lotus Improv essentially what this gentleman mentioned (it semantically separated the segment UDTs&UDF's) except in a cleaner fashion. Let's examine that screenshot Lotus Improv screenshot briefly and allow me to espose its structural advantages over a traditional spreadsheet- RE: Share - Worksheet - Untitled 2 - You have your traditional values of the cells in the primary pane. The selected cell is in grey. The derived value is in the cell. The expression evaluated to generate that value is in the bottom pane. - An important thing to note is that there is an inherent hierarchy to your data (is-a, not has-a, sadly), which makes aggregate analysis easy right out of the box. No need to move into a OLAP star-or-snowflake schema BI platform. (This structure is displayed in the 3 rows of the bottom pane of the [Right Window]) - In "Untitled 2" to the [Left-bottom], you have annotations so you're somewhat self-documenting. Joel Spolsky had an hour long talk on Excel to more or less use excel "right" (2) which is worth a watch, certainly, as the world is stuck in Excel. But for the most part it's constructing hacks around fundamental problems that exist in the platform. (I.e., according to his best practice methodology, you have to leave a r+1,r-1,c+1,c-1 border around all of your data. That should never, ever be required.) It's been years since I've used Lotus Improv, so forgive me if I'm forgetting the terminology. Laudable work for an undergraduate, but it always reminds me of the old adage - those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. ;) (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lotus_Improv_screenshot,_NeXTSTEP_version.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lotus_Improv_screenshot,_... (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c

pjmlp 10y ago
> This is why learning the history of your field is so important. Alan Kay keeps stressing this point and how many regard computing as pop culture. I agree, when one delves into the history of computing, programming language research and OS design, there are dozen of pearls waiting to be brought to life again. We could be so much more advanced, if many startups took the time to research our history instead of poorly reinventing the wheel.
- paulryanrogers 10y ago
  Could it be the difference between engineering and research/science? Often programmers are just trying to get something that works on time and under budget. And the hardware today is less constrained than the programmer's schedule. Imagine being told to weave something overnight, the only needle is lost in a haystack. But there are plenty of thin sticks on the ground and some thread. Oh, and the product is expected to last 3 months at most.
- sitkack 10y ago
  Findability and access is also an issue. The old papers are still locked up behind an ACM and IEEE paywall. Only those lucky enough to have a campus wide access policy can search and even then, the search interfaces are slow and or horribly broken. Maybe with virtualization, containerization, etc we can archive executable environments that people can still play with in 20 years. The sands of time are brutal to papers, code, executables and people.
  - groovy2shoes 10y ago
    It doesn't help that terminology has changed drastically in all that time, and that oftentimes some original paper that slipped under the radar is the only paper that uses some terminology. Alas, there's no way to search based on raw ideas!
    - sitkack 10y ago
      This is why I think papers should be annotatable and linkable by end users. Often we don't know how a paper fits into the knowledge graph until 10 or 20 years after publication.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    I used to pay for ACM Membership, why does everything need to available for free? Also anyone that goes paper hunting and doesn't want to pay, can with some effort, also find drafts of most papers. That is the biggest problem and it wouldn't change if ACM and IEEE were free. People need to be willing to search for them.
tnecniv 10y ago
> It's been years since I've used Lotus Improv, so forgive me if I'm forgetting the terminology. Laudable work for an undergraduate, but it always reminds me of the old adage - those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. ;) I've heard tales of people I know presenting their work at a conference. At the end, an old Russian professor raised his hand and said: "Are you aware of this Russian paper from 1964 that wasn't translated due to Cold War tensions that already did this?"
groovy2shoes 10y ago
Improv was really great, far superior to any other spreadsheet program ever. Nothing that's come since could rival it. I've always been floored that nobody has come out with an Improv-alike after all these years.

pjmlp 10y ago

> This is why learning the history of your field is so important. Alan Kay keeps stressing this point and how many regard computing as pop culture. I agree, when one delves into the history of computing, programming language research and OS design, there are dozen of pearls waiting to be brought to life again. We could be so much more advanced, if many startups took the time to research our history instead of poorly reinventing the wheel.

paulryanrogers 10y ago
Could it be the difference between engineering and research/science? Often programmers are just trying to get something that works on time and under budget. And the hardware today is less constrained than the programmer's schedule. Imagine being told to weave something overnight, the only needle is lost in a haystack. But there are plenty of thin sticks on the ground and some thread. Oh, and the product is expected to last 3 months at most.
sitkack 10y ago
Findability and access is also an issue. The old papers are still locked up behind an ACM and IEEE paywall. Only those lucky enough to have a campus wide access policy can search and even then, the search interfaces are slow and or horribly broken. Maybe with virtualization, containerization, etc we can archive executable environments that people can still play with in 20 years. The sands of time are brutal to papers, code, executables and people.
- groovy2shoes 10y ago
  It doesn't help that terminology has changed drastically in all that time, and that oftentimes some original paper that slipped under the radar is the only paper that uses some terminology. Alas, there's no way to search based on raw ideas!
  - sitkack 10y ago
    This is why I think papers should be annotatable and linkable by end users. Often we don't know how a paper fits into the knowledge graph until 10 or 20 years after publication.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  I used to pay for ACM Membership, why does everything need to available for free? Also anyone that goes paper hunting and doesn't want to pay, can with some effort, also find drafts of most papers. That is the biggest problem and it wouldn't change if ACM and IEEE were free. People need to be willing to search for them.

tnecniv 10y ago

> It's been years since I've used Lotus Improv, so forgive me if I'm forgetting the terminology. Laudable work for an undergraduate, but it always reminds me of the old adage - those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. ;) I've heard tales of people I know presenting their work at a conference. At the end, an old Russian professor raised his hand and said: "Are you aware of this Russian paper from 1964 that wasn't translated due to Cold War tensions that already did this?"

groovy2shoes 10y ago

Improv was really great, far superior to any other spreadsheet program ever. Nothing that's come since could rival it. I've always been floored that nobody has come out with an Improv-alike after all these years.