Scriptsheets

[Stephen Partington]

Google and LibreOffice both have similar functionality. (not VB, but they
have built in scripting tools)

On Thu, Nov 2, 2017 at 8:03 AM, <techlists at phpcoderusa.com> wrote:

>
> How would this be different from using Visual Basic for Applications
> (VBA).  It has literally been 20 years since I used VBA, however I seem to
> recall that the VBA was built in and internal so one would not need to use
> external resources to do the VBA automation.
>
>
>
> On 2017-11-02 01:51, trent shipley wrote:
>
> Dear PLUG list,
>
> I've been working on a think-piece about a programmable spreadsheet
> product and project. It runs 29 pages. I'm going to try to find a way to
> put the "proposal" on the internet.
>
> However, I've included the introduction and conclusion below, and I'd be
> interested in people's thoughts, especially Joseph Sinclair's or anyone in
> academia. I'd also very much like to know if anyone knows if anything like
> this exists or existed.
>
> Note that I'm not proposing using something like VBA or Python. I am
> proposing that spreadsheets themselves be programmable without leaving the
> spreadsheet environment or paradigm.
>
> The long paper should be ready to put on the internet in a week or two.
> I'd be interested in any thoughts about how to do that too.
>
> Regards,
>
> Trent
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Scriptsheets: A Spreadsheet You Can Program from the Sheet Environment
> Scriptsheets v0e0r0b0. First Proposal (unstable, draft)
>
> Trent Shipley
> trent1967.48 at outlook.com
> 2017-11-02
>
>      1  Concept
>
> To program in current spreadsheets you typically use a built-in scripting
> language like VBA. There are those who claim that spreadsheets are very
> close to a pure functional language. Others have claimed to implement a
> multi-tape Turing machine in Excel. You can ALMOST program in Excel without
> resorting to VBA.
>
> The goal of Scriptsheets is to create a spreadsheet environment where you
> can program natively from within a spreadsheet itself, without resorting to
> a separate programming language and programming environment. It is expected
> that Scriptsheets will be useful to scientists, engineers, and data
> scientists, and even in economics and finance. However Scriptsheets will be
> more complex than a typical spreadsheet product, and thus should have less
> appeal ingeneral business than existing spreadsheet products. Scriptsheets
> will be more powerful than existing spreadsheet products, but also harder
> to use.
>
>      2  License1
>
> Scriptsheets will have a free, open source, and minimally viral license.
>
>      6  Summary
>
> In this paper I proposed developing a spreadsheet that would be
> programmable from the native spreadsheet environment, without resorting to
> a more traditional language like Visual Basic for Applications or Python.
> The working name for the product is Scriptsheets. The core of the
> spreadsheet product's programmability would be the designated function
> sheet, accompanied by the PARAMETER "function" keyword. It is expected that
> an inherently programmable spreadsheet would have applications in
> engineering, data science, science, economics, and finance.  The added
> complexity would make Scriptsheets less useful in general business
> applications.
>
> Design of Scriptsheets would emphasize security first. The security model
> would be comprehensive and fine grained. It assumes a client-server
> architecture with a system administrator, application administrator, and
> users, including developers.
>
> The core Scriptsheets product will be a functionally complete, but minimal
> spreadsheet. The core product will be highly extensible, and will encourage
> modularity. I proposed some critical plugins that should exist before the
> v1e0 release of Scriptsheets. In this paper, the concept of virtual
> workbooks were presented briefly. Virtual workbooks can exist in the
> file-based workbook. Virtual workbooks can nest, and provide one way to
> extend a spreadsheet beyond three dimensions. It will be possible to make
> packages of file-based workbooks. Unlike other spreadsheets, Scriptsheets
> will be typed. However, the dynamic type will be the default type, and will
> allow Scriptsheets to behave like a typical spreadsheet. Since Scriptsheets
> will be programmable, developers will be able to perform IO from the
> spreadsheet itself. Scriptsheets will provide objects, likely through
> prototyping.
>
> Scriptsheets will re-purpose as much material as possible from license
> compatible spreadsheet products. Much of this essay drew on LibreOffice
> Calc documentation.
>
> A rich native development environment will exist by the v1e0 release.
>
> I said that, if feasible, the development team would use a polyglot
> development environment consisting of Scala, Java, C++, and C, pretty much
> in that order. Since Scriptsheets' native spreadsheet programming
> environment in many ways will approximate a functional programming
> paradigm, I suspect it will be convenient to program much of Scriptsheets
> in a typed, functional programming language like Scala.
>
>
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-- 
A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

Stephen
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