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Or don't please, I think it's a terrible idea to abuse spreadsheets like this. I'm being forced by my manager to do this for a client due to a close deadline (

Or don't please, I think it's a terrible idea to abuse spreadsheets like this. I'm being forced by my manager to do this for a client due to a close deadline (the idea is to implement a spreadsheet as interface to make it quicker than a classic web app), lbut they keep asking me to implement advanced features that would be 10 times faster to implement with a regular interface or sometimes not even possible on a sheet. Spreadsheets have a precise use case and it's not to replace web apps.

lloeki 7y ago
I had a situation in a certain business field where the calculations the customer designed and implemented in a spreadsheet changed so regularly that implementing them in code was unworkable because by the time the code was out if was both late and outdated. I designed[0] a solution that recursively parsed and resolved the formulas from a list of input and output cells, built an AST out of it and transpiled it to actual code or bytecode. The prototype worked beautifully and made the result diffable, extendable with, and easily embeddable within real code. My then boss found the solution useless and NASA-class, outright rejected it, and had another team just spin up some Excel, calling it with OLE or whatever and called it a day, which had abysmal performance, reliability, and runtime cost (as in $$) which ended up killing the deal with the now irate customer. [0] Actually since I had the idea waaaay before the business need and project, I had a personal MIT-licensed clean room toy implementation of it sleeping somewhere on my hard drive and used that for the business prototype.
- jarym 7y ago
  Nice work! Would you consider publishing that on GitHub?
  - lloeki 7y ago
    Thank you! That's the plan since the onset as soon as I have some time to turn this into not a glorious hack that basically only runs on my machine. Just the Excel and OpenDocument formula parser (using PEG via treetop in Ruby, can't recall what I used for Go, got a Python thing too) could be very useful to some already.
    - IggleSniggle 7y ago
      Honestly even as a horrible hack that only runs on your machine, I think I’d be interested in seeing it. PM me and I’d be happy to help make it not-so-hacky. I say this as someone who has plenty of projects in the “drafts” bin that often just needed a conspirator to have a reason to push things over the line.
x38iq84n 7y ago
This, exactly. Spreadsheets have received enough abuse already.
_pmf_ 7y ago
> I think it's a terrible idea to abuse spreadsheets like this. It currently maintains millions of business software jobs.
- chris_wot 7y ago
  That explains a lot.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Telemarketing also maintains millions of jobs. Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to keep around.
  - _pmf_ 7y ago
    > Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to keep around. Well, too bad the smart guys in Silicon Valley are busy perfecting their yak shaving, otherwise I'm sure they would have found the holy grail of business software that us foolish dark matter programmers have failed to deliver on for several decades in no time.
fit2rule 7y ago
I'm not sure I completely compel with your idea. The reason is, I don't think there is a single website out there, which couldn't be described in a spreadsheet. What I suggest though, is take a look at this, and throw your companies sheet at it in a 30 minute hack session. If this proves unfruitful, I'd be happy to hear all about it. Spreadsheets are a terrible way to make web-sites, though. One of the bits I agree about, is that we should be very wary that we, developers, don't get replaced by one.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > One of the bits I agree about, is that we should be very wary that we, developers, don't get replaced by one. Friendly reminder that this is literally the whole point of the job. Automation. Making people stop doing tasks that can be done by machines - which often means replacing people with code. Sometimes even ourselves.
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    Yeah, I know: Spreadsheets > Web.
tomyeh 7y ago
Abuse or not. It is always great if we can re-exploit the value of thousands of existing/legacy Excel files.

lloeki 7y ago

I had a situation in a certain business field where the calculations the customer designed and implemented in a spreadsheet changed so regularly that implementing them in code was unworkable because by the time the code was out if was both late and outdated. I designed[0] a solution that recursively parsed and resolved the formulas from a list of input and output cells, built an AST out of it and transpiled it to actual code or bytecode. The prototype worked beautifully and made the result diffable, extendable with, and easily embeddable within real code. My then boss found the solution useless and NASA-class, outright rejected it, and had another team just spin up some Excel, calling it with OLE or whatever and called it a day, which had abysmal performance, reliability, and runtime cost (as in $$) which ended up killing the deal with the now irate customer. [0] Actually since I had the idea waaaay before the business need and project, I had a personal MIT-licensed clean room toy implementation of it sleeping somewhere on my hard drive and used that for the business prototype.

jarym 7y ago
Nice work! Would you consider publishing that on GitHub?
- lloeki 7y ago
  Thank you! That's the plan since the onset as soon as I have some time to turn this into not a glorious hack that basically only runs on my machine. Just the Excel and OpenDocument formula parser (using PEG via treetop in Ruby, can't recall what I used for Go, got a Python thing too) could be very useful to some already.
  - IggleSniggle 7y ago
    Honestly even as a horrible hack that only runs on your machine, I think I’d be interested in seeing it. PM me and I’d be happy to help make it not-so-hacky. I say this as someone who has plenty of projects in the “drafts” bin that often just needed a conspirator to have a reason to push things over the line.

x38iq84n 7y ago

This, exactly. Spreadsheets have received enough abuse already.

_pmf_ 7y ago

> I think it's a terrible idea to abuse spreadsheets like this. It currently maintains millions of business software jobs.

chris_wot 7y ago
That explains a lot.
Nextgrid 7y ago
Telemarketing also maintains millions of jobs. Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to keep around.
- _pmf_ 7y ago
  > Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to keep around. Well, too bad the smart guys in Silicon Valley are busy perfecting their yak shaving, otherwise I'm sure they would have found the holy grail of business software that us foolish dark matter programmers have failed to deliver on for several decades in no time.

fit2rule 7y ago

I'm not sure I completely compel with your idea. The reason is, I don't think there is a single website out there, which couldn't be described in a spreadsheet. What I suggest though, is take a look at this, and throw your companies sheet at it in a 30 minute hack session. If this proves unfruitful, I'd be happy to hear all about it. Spreadsheets are a terrible way to make web-sites, though. One of the bits I agree about, is that we should be very wary that we, developers, don't get replaced by one.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> One of the bits I agree about, is that we should be very wary that we, developers, don't get replaced by one. Friendly reminder that this is literally the whole point of the job. Automation. Making people stop doing tasks that can be done by machines - which often means replacing people with code. Sometimes even ourselves.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  Yeah, I know: Spreadsheets > Web.

tomyeh 7y ago

Abuse or not. It is always great if we can re-exploit the value of thousands of existing/legacy Excel files.