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The project seems interesting, but IMO it undermines the author’s case that the only example presented is completely artificial and unrelatable. After explaini

by pavlov 3y ago

The project seems interesting, but IMO it undermines the author’s case that the only example presented is completely artificial and unrelatable. After explaining how spreadsheets enabled ordinary users to solve real-world problems better than traditional programming, the author proposes to take it to the next level with APL-style expressions, and gives a code example for the following task: You're given a dictionary and asked to find the longest word which contains no more than 2 vowels. I don’t believe there is a single Excel user in 40 years who ever needed to perform this operation. It’s the kind of abstracted “l33tcode” exercise that only appears in computer science classes and a certain type of programming job interview. A practical example of how an array language IDE works better than a spreadsheet for some useful task would go a long way here.

Joker_vD 3y ago
Ah, the classic "Two Stories" [0] from Joel Spolsky: I pretty rapidly realized that the App Architecture group knew even less than I did about macros. At least, I had talked to a handful of macro developers and some Excel old-timers to get a grip on what people actually did with Excel macros: things like recalculating a spreadsheet every day, or rearranging some data according to a certain pattern. But the App Architecture group had merely *thought* about macros as an academic exercise, and they couldn’t actually come up with any examples of the kind of macros people would want to write. Pressured, one of them came up with the idea that since Excel already had underlining and double-underlining, perhaps someone would want to write a macro to triple underline. Yep. REAL common. So I proceeded to ignore them as diplomatically as possible. [0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/03/19/two-stories/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/03/19/two-stories/
miga 3y ago
Part of modern university training is making exercises as unrelatable as unpractical as possible, so that students are relieved to find their commercial work simply boring and repetitive afterwards.

by pavlov 3y ago

Joker_vD 3y ago

Ah, the classic "Two Stories" [0] from Joel Spolsky: I pretty rapidly realized that the App Architecture group knew even less than I did about macros. At least, I had talked to a handful of macro developers and some Excel old-timers to get a grip on what people actually did with Excel macros: things like recalculating a spreadsheet every day, or rearranging some data according to a certain pattern. But the App Architecture group had merely *thought* about macros as an academic exercise, and they couldn’t actually come up with any examples of the kind of macros people would want to write. Pressured, one of them came up with the idea that since Excel already had underlining and double-underlining, perhaps someone would want to write a macro to triple underline. Yep. REAL common. So I proceeded to ignore them as diplomatically as possible. [0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/03/19/two-stories/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/03/19/two-stories/

miga 3y ago

Part of modern university training is making exercises as unrelatable as unpractical as possible, so that students are relieved to find their commercial work simply boring and repetitive afterwards.