4 ms·

I don't know... I look at this and I just see an alternative front-end for a spreadsheet program.

by Retra 7y ago

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Spread sheet programs are functional languages. Luna looks to be a functional language, hence the similarity. Spread sheet programs just have a bad rap of being used by non-programmers, and limited functionality outside of the spreadsheet universe. Ignoring the caveats mentioned, the principles of spreadsheet programming are programmatically sound. Spreadsheet programmers are functional programmers.
- PaulHoule 7y ago
  More to the point, execution of a spreadsheet does not progress in one particular direction, rather when you update the data the engine can figure out what cells are affected by the change. Business rules engines work in a similar way, Prolog works in the exact opposite direction. The trouble w/ spreadsheets I think is organizational. Some things are an exact match for the 2-d grid, other things (say you fill out 5 numeric fields and then calculate with scalar formulas to produce a similar dimensional output) are easy to express with it (even if tk/solver is a better fit.) Then you rapidly go over a cliff where you don't have the organizational tools to handle it -- tuple and set values programming (eg. Matlab, Sql) is one answer, object oriented is another.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    > More to the point, execution of a spreadsheet does not progress in one particular direction, rather when you update the data the engine can figure out what cells are affected by the change. Business rules engines work in a similar way Functional programming does not progress in a particular direction either. What you describe is spread sheet programming, but it is also a description of functional programming. >Then you rapidly go over a cliff where you don't have the organizational tools to handle it -- tuple and set values programming (eg. Matlab, Sql) is one answer, object oriented is another. It's not so much organizational tools vs. a different style of thinking. OOP and sets can be used in both spreadsheets and functional programming (think: a spreadsheet column can be thought of as both a set or a object struct and thus both paradigms can be applied). Procedures and ordered steps cannot be used in functional programming nor spreadsheet programming, hence the term "procedural programming" which is what I think you are actually referring to in your last statement.
  - xfer 7y ago
    Spreadsheets are an example of incremental computing(see adapton for formal research).

I don't know... I look at this and I just see an alternative front-end for a spreadsheet program.

by Retra 7y ago

I don't know... I look at this and I just see an alternative front-end for a spreadsheet program.

Spread sheet programs are functional languages. Luna looks to be a functional language, hence the similarity. Spread sheet programs just have a bad rap of being used by non-programmers, and limited functionality outside of the spreadsheet universe. Ignoring the caveats mentioned, the principles of spreadsheet programming are programmatically sound. Spreadsheet programmers are functional programmers.

PaulHoule 7y ago
More to the point, execution of a spreadsheet does not progress in one particular direction, rather when you update the data the engine can figure out what cells are affected by the change. Business rules engines work in a similar way, Prolog works in the exact opposite direction. The trouble w/ spreadsheets I think is organizational. Some things are an exact match for the 2-d grid, other things (say you fill out 5 numeric fields and then calculate with scalar formulas to produce a similar dimensional output) are easy to express with it (even if tk/solver is a better fit.) Then you rapidly go over a cliff where you don't have the organizational tools to handle it -- tuple and set values programming (eg. Matlab, Sql) is one answer, object oriented is another.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  > More to the point, execution of a spreadsheet does not progress in one particular direction, rather when you update the data the engine can figure out what cells are affected by the change. Business rules engines work in a similar way Functional programming does not progress in a particular direction either. What you describe is spread sheet programming, but it is also a description of functional programming. >Then you rapidly go over a cliff where you don't have the organizational tools to handle it -- tuple and set values programming (eg. Matlab, Sql) is one answer, object oriented is another. It's not so much organizational tools vs. a different style of thinking. OOP and sets can be used in both spreadsheets and functional programming (think: a spreadsheet column can be thought of as both a set or a object struct and thus both paradigms can be applied). Procedures and ordered steps cannot be used in functional programming nor spreadsheet programming, hence the term "procedural programming" which is what I think you are actually referring to in your last statement.
- xfer 7y ago
  Spreadsheets are an example of incremental computing(see adapton for formal research).