Building a spreadsheet is still programming. It's just not procedural.
Entering a document with markup into a word processor is also
programming. Don't forget the old EAM machines with boards. That was
programming too. I am still impressed by that architecture as those were
machines with cycle times of as little as 3 hertz and could still
outperform today's PCs with gigahertz speeds.
John Randall wrote:
Steven H. Rogers writes:
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.
The good enough is the enemy of the good.
I agree with Oleg's comments about intuitiveness being a major appeal with
spreadsheets. Anything that can be used instantly to solve the task at
hand is better than something which has to be deliberately learned.
I know a number of people who know very little about programming but are
absolute whizzes with spreadsheets. In general, they are incapable of
explaining what they are doing, but get they the correct result,
reinforcing the idea that spreadsheets tap into some kind of intuition.
Best wishes,
John
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