[dnautics]

Spreadsheet users are programmers. Shouldn't be a war.

But, the problem with spreadsheets is that they are an engine of shoddy programming. I don't think it's fundamental. All currently existing spreadsheet implementations hide their functions and make review difficult. If we had spreadsheets that somehow exposed the relations between the cells and made them easier to inspect, ideally minimizing selective interaction (obviously you can mouseover, but that is a far more selective interaction than scrolling a file), they would be less of a problem.

To some degree notebooks (matlab/mathematica/octave, jupyter, pluto, livebook) are solving this problem, and probably being "halfway-between" spreadsheets code, with being fully reviewable is a game-changer, why data scientists like them.

I think you could also improve on the spreadsheet in other ways by being more opinionated. You could have each table be a named entity not on an "infinite-plane of cells" (so you have to set the # of rows and columns, obviously should still be easy to insert/remove rows and columns). I am sure I am not alone in thinking for the last 3 decades that graphs just "hanging out in the middle of the cells" is really stupid.

[andrewlgood]

I agree with the your statements. Would add that it is important to understand most developers of spreadsheets have never taken a programming class and do not fully understand many of the issues discussed in this thread.

Also, there is little motivation to the spreadsheet user to change. In the examples given by the author, the original creator of the spreadsheet is long gone by the time the problems surface.

[dnautics]

The cynic in me says that sometimes there is business value to keeping formulae away from review. When the regulators come knocking you get plausible deniability for "mistakes" and at least avoid treble damages.