3 ms·

It would be great for a scripting language, but for field functions I would have preferred something that's more akin to FRP-oriented language (e.g. Scheme).

by euske 9y ago

vanderZwan 9y ago
Excel itself is functional and reactive already, wouldn't adding an FRP language on top of that be a bit superfluous? Check out Felienne Hermans' work if you haven't already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKf8TrLUOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKf8TrLUOw http://www.felienne.com/publications http://www.felienne.com/publications
- euske 9y ago
  Excel is reactive already, but its field functions can't have variable bindings or procedural operation as far as I know (unless, of course, you write your own separate VBA function). I sometimes want to write in a complex one-liner and thought lisp/scheme would be a great choice.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    Ah, fair enough. I mean, I'm not debating the power of Lisp, and it would be great first languages for someone not trained in programming. OTOH, there is of course the trade-off to make it as useful for as broad a selection of users as possible; Python has a lot more mind-share, and the SciPy ecosystem would be a great complement. If Excel adds some practical convenience functions to the global namespace, would it be that hard to make Python fit the reactive paradigm in this context? About those variables: maybe the Bumblebee tool she and her team made[0][1][2] would work for you Our language is an extension of regular Excel formulas, so you can write a transformation like A1+A2 <-> SUM(A1:A2) which allows BumbleBee to transform exactly the formula A1+A2 to SUM(A1:A2) or vice versa. In addition to using exact cell references, you may also use variables instead of cell references: {i,j} + {i,j+1} <-> SUM({i,j}:{i,j+1}) I hope it can be useful to you! :) In the video I linked before she mentions it at 31m33s. Oh and here[3] are the slides for that video, in case you prefer those. (Disclaimer: I don't use Excel myself; I'm just a programmer who wants to get more people into programming, so I was both happy and impressed when I saw her presentation on how people not trained as programmers use it to do really complex tasks) [0] http://www.felienne.com/BumbleBee http://www.felienne.com/BumbleBee [1] http://www.felienne.com/archives/2964 http://www.felienne.com/archives/2964 [2] https://figshare.com/articles/BumbleBee_A_Transformation_Environment_for_Spreadsheet_Formulas/813347 https://figshare.com/articles/BumbleBee_A_Transformation_Env... Paper on BumbleBee [3] http://gotocon.com/dl/goto-amsterdam-2016/slides/FelienneHermans_PureFunctionalProgrammingInExcel.pdf http://gotocon.com/dl/goto-amsterdam-2016/slides/FelienneHer...

It would be great for a scripting language, but for field functions I would have preferred something that's more akin to FRP-oriented language (e.g. Scheme).

by euske 9y ago

It would be great for a scripting language, but for field functions I would have preferred something that's more akin to FRP-oriented language (e.g. Scheme).

vanderZwan 9y ago

Excel itself is functional and reactive already, wouldn't adding an FRP language on top of that be a bit superfluous? Check out Felienne Hermans' work if you haven't already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKf8TrLUOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKf8TrLUOw http://www.felienne.com/publications http://www.felienne.com/publications

euske 9y ago
Excel is reactive already, but its field functions can't have variable bindings or procedural operation as far as I know (unless, of course, you write your own separate VBA function). I sometimes want to write in a complex one-liner and thought lisp/scheme would be a great choice.
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  Ah, fair enough. I mean, I'm not debating the power of Lisp, and it would be great first languages for someone not trained in programming. OTOH, there is of course the trade-off to make it as useful for as broad a selection of users as possible; Python has a lot more mind-share, and the SciPy ecosystem would be a great complement. If Excel adds some practical convenience functions to the global namespace, would it be that hard to make Python fit the reactive paradigm in this context? About those variables: maybe the Bumblebee tool she and her team made[0][1][2] would work for you Our language is an extension of regular Excel formulas, so you can write a transformation like A1+A2 <-> SUM(A1:A2) which allows BumbleBee to transform exactly the formula A1+A2 to SUM(A1:A2) or vice versa. In addition to using exact cell references, you may also use variables instead of cell references: {i,j} + {i,j+1} <-> SUM({i,j}:{i,j+1}) I hope it can be useful to you! :) In the video I linked before she mentions it at 31m33s. Oh and here[3] are the slides for that video, in case you prefer those. (Disclaimer: I don't use Excel myself; I'm just a programmer who wants to get more people into programming, so I was both happy and impressed when I saw her presentation on how people not trained as programmers use it to do really complex tasks) [0] http://www.felienne.com/BumbleBee http://www.felienne.com/BumbleBee [1] http://www.felienne.com/archives/2964 http://www.felienne.com/archives/2964 [2] https://figshare.com/articles/BumbleBee_A_Transformation_Environment_for_Spreadsheet_Formulas/813347 https://figshare.com/articles/BumbleBee_A_Transformation_Env... Paper on BumbleBee [3] http://gotocon.com/dl/goto-amsterdam-2016/slides/FelienneHermans_PureFunctionalProgrammingInExcel.pdf http://gotocon.com/dl/goto-amsterdam-2016/slides/FelienneHer...