4 ms·

I've also seen examples that are pushed way further than I thought possible. I'm thinking about some of the things people do in Excel.

airstrike 1y ago
Spreadsheet is a form of programming, so you can build anything there.
- cluckindan 1y ago
  Let’s see an HTTP server in an Excel sheet.
  - airstrike 1y ago
    That's a disingenuous take. You could write one, but it won't be allowed to connect to anything other than itself because Excel doesn't give it the network stack or IO it needs. Unless you use VBA, of course. See https://spreadsheets-are-all-you-need.ai/index.html https://spreadsheets-are-all-you-need.ai/index.html
    - shortstuffsushi 1y ago
      Maybe just me but seeing side by side "spreadsheets are all you need" and ".ai" seem to be somewhat uh... competing claims.
      - airstrike 1y ago
        It's a play on "Attention is all you need", the seminal AI paper. The author of that website implemented GPT-2 inference on Excel
  - oblio 1y ago
    Fairly sure Excel can get access to the entire .NET runtime. Plus, someone made a MOV only compiler, soon...
    - homarp 1y ago
      https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/client-developer/excel/calling-user-defined-functions-from-dlls https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/client-developer/ex... Calling user-defined functions (UDFs) from a worksheet is as simple as calling built-in functions: You enter the function via a cell formula.
  - Someone 1y ago
    I didn’t check their claim, but https://github.com/michaelneu/webxcel https://github.com/michaelneu/webxcel: “Webxcel creates a full-fledged RESTful web backend from your Microsoft Excel workbooks. It is written in 100% plain Visual Basic macros and comes with a lot of handy tools to help you build the next big thing.”
    - cluckindan 1y ago
      Ha! Sure beats the pure bash HTTP server. ;-)
- kibibu 1y ago
  Not a common opinion, but one I happen to share.
- layer8 1y ago
  Spreadsheets traditionally don’t support iteration (loops) or recursion. In Excel you had to go the VBA route for actual programming.
  - airstrike 1y ago
    In my hands they do
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      That is the spirit.
      - accrual 1y ago
        In the distant future: $ ./myapp.xlsx --port 8080 My App listening on port 8080 Loaded 1337 rows
        mryall 1y ago
        The future is now with Microsoft Excel Web Services, which is part of SharePoint. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/general-development/excel-services-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/general-dev...
    - aruggirello 1y ago
      In other hands, I have seen Excel spreadsheet hundred-products pricelists become a freaking tangle of merged cells, multiple rows for products, spelling mistakes, multiple spaces everywhere, and price cells hand-formatted. And I had to export the contents to machine readable .csv...
      - accrual 1y ago
        That sounds like a nightmare to untangle. On the other hand, it would be very satisfying to go from the original pricelists to a new, cleaned format!
djha-skin 1y ago
In 2010 I was working for a student computer support shop. We had web developers building our own ticketing system. In those days, I was told that everything in the UI was just tables. It was the only way they could get enough control on UI elements before div tags became widely spread.
- rzzzt 1y ago
  Also 1x1 pixel spacer GIFs.
  - aruggirello 1y ago
    IE6 forced us to do crazy stupid stuff, like <div> </div> - and don't even start talking about 
- accrual 1y ago
  I still love using tables in 2025 for webapps designed to run on old browsers. It's easy to render data into them (it's just headers, rows, columns) and they automatically have a cool, functional look (IMO).
- im3w1l 1y ago
  Html tables are very different from excel tables. Fundamentally html tables were used because rows are a good way to split up the page vertically (you could have one row for the header, one for the content one for the footer). And columns are good for splitting it up horizontally (you could have one column for the side panel, and one for the content, and the last one for an obnoxious blinking ad).
- Klonoar 1y ago
  Div tags were widely spread by 2010, though. We were pretty far past the era of falling back to tables by that point.
toolslive 1y ago
IIRC, for a long time in the late 90s, Fedex was glued together with spreadsheets.
nosioptar 1y ago
I took a graphics programming class where one dude did a bunch 3d rendering stuff in excel. Rather than try to understand, I decided he was into witchcraft.
yoz-y 1y ago
If we somehow manage to solve the two main spreadsheet downsides (imo): testing and change/version control, then spreadsheets would be a terrific programming paradigm. As it is now I find it very powerful and empowering, but also scary.

airstrike 1y ago

Spreadsheet is a form of programming, so you can build anything there.

cluckindan 1y ago
Let’s see an HTTP server in an Excel sheet.
- airstrike 1y ago
  That's a disingenuous take. You could write one, but it won't be allowed to connect to anything other than itself because Excel doesn't give it the network stack or IO it needs. Unless you use VBA, of course. See https://spreadsheets-are-all-you-need.ai/index.html https://spreadsheets-are-all-you-need.ai/index.html
  - shortstuffsushi 1y ago
    Maybe just me but seeing side by side "spreadsheets are all you need" and ".ai" seem to be somewhat uh... competing claims.
    - airstrike 1y ago
      It's a play on "Attention is all you need", the seminal AI paper. The author of that website implemented GPT-2 inference on Excel
- oblio 1y ago
  Fairly sure Excel can get access to the entire .NET runtime. Plus, someone made a MOV only compiler, soon...
  - homarp 1y ago
    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/client-developer/excel/calling-user-defined-functions-from-dlls https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/client-developer/ex... Calling user-defined functions (UDFs) from a worksheet is as simple as calling built-in functions: You enter the function via a cell formula.
- Someone 1y ago
  I didn’t check their claim, but https://github.com/michaelneu/webxcel https://github.com/michaelneu/webxcel: “Webxcel creates a full-fledged RESTful web backend from your Microsoft Excel workbooks. It is written in 100% plain Visual Basic macros and comes with a lot of handy tools to help you build the next big thing.”
  - cluckindan 1y ago
    Ha! Sure beats the pure bash HTTP server. ;-)
kibibu 1y ago
Not a common opinion, but one I happen to share.
layer8 1y ago
Spreadsheets traditionally don’t support iteration (loops) or recursion. In Excel you had to go the VBA route for actual programming.
- airstrike 1y ago
  In my hands they do
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    That is the spirit.
    - accrual 1y ago
      In the distant future: $ ./myapp.xlsx --port 8080 My App listening on port 8080 Loaded 1337 rows
      - mryall 1y ago
        The future is now with Microsoft Excel Web Services, which is part of SharePoint. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/general-development/excel-services-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/general-dev...
  - aruggirello 1y ago
    In other hands, I have seen Excel spreadsheet hundred-products pricelists become a freaking tangle of merged cells, multiple rows for products, spelling mistakes, multiple spaces everywhere, and price cells hand-formatted. And I had to export the contents to machine readable .csv...
    - accrual 1y ago
      That sounds like a nightmare to untangle. On the other hand, it would be very satisfying to go from the original pricelists to a new, cleaned format!

djha-skin 1y ago

In 2010 I was working for a student computer support shop. We had web developers building our own ticketing system. In those days, I was told that everything in the UI was just tables. It was the only way they could get enough control on UI elements before div tags became widely spread.

rzzzt 1y ago
Also 1x1 pixel spacer GIFs.
- aruggirello 1y ago
  IE6 forced us to do crazy stupid stuff, like <div> </div> - and don't even start talking about
accrual 1y ago
I still love using tables in 2025 for webapps designed to run on old browsers. It's easy to render data into them (it's just headers, rows, columns) and they automatically have a cool, functional look (IMO).
im3w1l 1y ago
Html tables are very different from excel tables. Fundamentally html tables were used because rows are a good way to split up the page vertically (you could have one row for the header, one for the content one for the footer). And columns are good for splitting it up horizontally (you could have one column for the side panel, and one for the content, and the last one for an obnoxious blinking ad).
Klonoar 1y ago
Div tags were widely spread by 2010, though. We were pretty far past the era of falling back to tables by that point.

toolslive 1y ago

IIRC, for a long time in the late 90s, Fedex was glued together with spreadsheets.

nosioptar 1y ago

I took a graphics programming class where one dude did a bunch 3d rendering stuff in excel. Rather than try to understand, I decided he was into witchcraft.

yoz-y 1y ago

If we somehow manage to solve the two main spreadsheet downsides (imo): testing and change/version control, then spreadsheets would be a terrific programming paradigm. As it is now I find it very powerful and empowering, but also scary.