4 ms·
I put spreadsheets in a special category of "document-as-program". As in: - an excel spreadsheet is a program that is run by Excel - a word document (with or w
by equalsione 4y ago
I put spreadsheets in a special category of "document-as-program".
As in:
- an excel spreadsheet is a program that is run by Excel
- a word document (with or without macros) is run by Word
- a web page is a program that is executed by the browser
Documents-as-programs have this dual identity where they are a combination of data, presentation and logic. It's not a perfect categorisation but I find it helpful.
- jrochkind1 4y agoI mean... a ruby program is run by the/a ruby interpreter, same with python. but I guess they aren't as presentation-focused in the same way, presentation focused for a certain presentation environment, as your examples perhaps are. Hypercard, then, would be in this category?
- equalsione 4y agoI would say HyperCard fits here. The GUI is determined by the interpreter/vm. A spreadsheet doesn't really define it's GUI - the "host" defines it. A ruby script building a GUI (e.g. shoes) can look like anything. A spreadsheet, word document or web page has to have some basic structure. Of course with things like VBA/OpenOffice Basic, or SPAs with JS, those distinctions start to blur - it's definitely not a perfect categorisation and it breaks down eventually. Maybe you could say every document is like a custom plugin. E.g. my spreadsheet is like a plugin to Excel/Numbers/Sheets I _think_ in fact in MSOffice and OpenOffice plugins actually were just special documents but it's been a very long time since I was in that world.