|
What is a spreadsheet, really? It's an interactive programming environment with an interface optimized for data entry and some other things. The difference between Excel and, say, Matlab or R, is excel's strength at data entry, visual/intuitive nature, and total lack of accessible higher-level programming features. So the ideal solution in this problem space, to me, looks not much like excel at all, but more like a high-powered computation environment a-la mathematica, except with roughly the execution model and visual/accellerated/intuitive interface strength (and then some, as you suggest) of spreadsheets. For example, the whole grid thing might have to go, instead making tables first class objects in the language, and then have a strong visual representation with an accelerated (not plain text) interface for manipulating them. But maybe you want to take it in a different direction than I do? In any case, excel can trace a pretty direct line to VisiCalc, with very little fundamental reevaluation applied since 1978 or so. So you might want to consider not being bound too closely to the "this is how spreadsheets have always been done" thing. |