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For the author: What do you think is the biggest flaw of spreadsheet programming? It seems like the biggest advances you are trying to make are "cells within ce

For the author: What do you think is the biggest flaw of spreadsheet programming? It seems like the biggest advances you are trying to make are "cells within cells", prototype oop, and immutability. For me, it always seemed like the biggest problem was that once a spreadsheet grows past a certain size, it becomes unmaintainable due to the makeshift unspecified schema, layers upon layers of hacks, and the repetition due to the lack of good abstraction tools. While your demo was impressive, it seemed like it was going in the wrong direction when it comes to addressing these issues. Databases and data processing often seem to form a ugly mess when mixed too closely. I concede that might be a hasty judgment, since I haven't really had the chance to play around with it yet.

david927 12y ago
That's a really good question. You're not the first to suggest that it wouldn't scale in terms of complexity. But it was actually built to solve the problem of that type of scaling -- that was one its prime directives in being built -- but until it can really be tested, no one can know how it will truly hold up. > Databases and data processing often seem to form a ugly mess when mixed too closely. Yes, that's true, and I think that it's due to granularity you normally get when using declarative languages like SQL. It's quite difficult to do anything but make a basic selection. Declarative is a lonely paradigm for that reason. I think this is different because of how you structure and select, and would then avoid those traps, but again, time will tell. Email me and I'll update you on how it progresses (including what its biggest flaws are turning out to be).