Growing the Graveyard of "Better Spreadsheets"
The article discusses the evolution of spreadsheets, their limitations, and introduces "scrapsheets," a new approach with advanced features like arrays and asynchronous operations, aiming to improve data handling.
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The article discusses the evolution and challenges of spreadsheets, highlighting their historical significance and ongoing popularity due to their user-friendly design and flexibility. Despite their advantages, modern spreadsheets like Excel and Google Sheets face several issues, including the prevalence of errors, limitations in handling complex data operations, and a lack of integration with external datasets. The author proposes a new approach called "scrapsheets," which aims to address these shortcomings by introducing a programming language, Scrapscript, that allows for more advanced data manipulation and integration. Key features of scrapsheets include the ability to handle arrays instead of scalars, a masonry layout for better organization, and support for asynchronous operations. The author expresses hope that scrapsheets will succeed where previous attempts at creating "better spreadsheets" have failed, while also acknowledging the possibility of it becoming another unsuccessful project.
- Spreadsheets have been essential tools since the introduction of VisiCalc, but they have significant limitations.
- Common issues with modern spreadsheets include errors, siloed datasets, and a lack of advanced programming capabilities.
- The proposed "scrapsheets" aims to enhance spreadsheet functionality with a real programming language and better data handling.
- Key features of scrapsheets include support for arrays, a masonry layout, and asynchronous data loading.
- The author plans to demo scrapsheets at LIVE 2024 and is prepared for the possibility of it not succeeding.
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1 commentsI still think Excel is the shining example of malleable software, one of the only user programmable apps that is a true app, not just a crappy programming language.
But I never understood the appeal of the 2D layout.
I'd rather have something like VB, where you can link controls to an expression that queries a real SQLite style table, with a generic premade table editor (Like Datasette's editing stuff).
But then again, I don't generally directly work with lots of data and only touch a spreadsheet or CSV monthly or so
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