That's a very interesting point to note, how come:
a very powerful engine and notation fades in view of
seemingly more basic medium-skilled user
application with modest operations capacity,
percieved as entry and presentation convenience
supplemented with casual calculations.
There is something missing in this comparison.
VisiCalc went on to become the first "killer app" (WikiPedia).
It doesn't seem that it's accountants alone or even
on the most part percieved its potential and made up all
those record sales.
There should be a very lucky combination of factors
that played that important role. They belong to
the usability category:
- "what-if" factor: the ability to construct cascading
calculation model, which updates in real time (*).
- highly visual and feedback based
- seeing the big picture: ability to easily create and modify
a layout of multiple subviews that are fixed in space
and represent many different aspects of the model
- lightening rapid application development for a
common person
- bottom low entry barrier: just type in and get instant results,
for simple to medium level applications
*) "spread" is attributed to accounting ledger page spread,
but it also could be viewed as instant "spread of calculation"
to all parts of the model with a change in a single value
In APL you can create hierachical calculations,
but they are not visual -- user/developer needs additional effort
to see them.
There is an interactive factor in APL, but user can see
only one result at a time. There is no observing
of the whole picture with instant feedback.
It can be argued that the rectangular cell layout, also referred to as "Grid"
is an accidental rather then a decisive factor. There other instances
of very appealing UI solutions with a different controls structure,
for example, visual modelers, such as CAD and 3D designers,
to a minor extent another killer app: Photoshop -- it doesn't do
functionally any more than any decent image library.
But especially close to the above factors is recent Apple's
Quartz Composer -- it's like spreadsheet inside out, so you
actually observe and manipulate the connections between freely floating
cascades
of clustered image, compositing, video and animation operations
each of whose parameters you observe changing dynamically in addition
to the resulting scene view; in addition to entering numerical values,
physical manipulators are used like trackers and round knobs.
To sum up, it's possibility to create complex models with small effort
by direct intuitive manipulation, instant feedback and observation of
all the details and the model and as a whole.
What they say about good car design -- it's a natural extension
of the human body. So, think of the goal of a good application design as
producing the natural extension of the human mind.
----- Original Message ----
From: Steven H. Rogers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: General forum <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 8:41:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Jgeneral] spreadsheets
Spreadsheets are often used to edit, view, and present data with little
actual computation performed on spreadsheet values. While APL and J are
"better" at most computations, spreadsheets are "good enough" for most
people's needs.
Focusing on J Grid development to make it a tool for this type of
application that people would use even if they don't know J might be a good
marketing tactic.
Regards,
Steve
Björn Helgason wrote:
> I have always been a bit surprised how APL lost out to spreadsheets
>
> APL had it al except the presentation part
>
> J has been much better and the Grids are a good step in the right direction
>
> The spreadsheet wars are hotting up with Google now entering
>
> http://www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/tour3.html
>
--
Steven H. Rogers, Ph.D., [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Weblog: http://shrogers.com/weblog
"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense."
-- John McCarthy
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