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TrueGrid

Code the Table, Tabulate the Data

Conference Paper (2016)
Author(s)

Felienne Hermans (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI))

Tijs van der Storm (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI))

Research Group
Software Engineering
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50230-4_29 Final published version
More Info
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Publication Year
2016
Language
English
Research Group
Software Engineering
Pages (from-to)
388-393
Publisher
Springer
ISBN (print)
978-3-319-50229-8
ISBN (electronic)
978-3-319-50230-4
Event
Software Technologies: Applications and Foundations, STAF 2016 Collocated Workshops: 5th International Symposium on Data to Models and Back, DataMod 2016, 7th International Workshop on Graph Computation Models, GCM 2016, 3rd International Workshop on Human-Oriented Formal Methods, HOFM 2016, 2nd International Workshop on Model-Driven Engineering, Logic and Optimization, MELO 2016, 3rd International Workshop on Software Engineering Methods in Spreadsheets, SEMS 2016 and 1st International Workshop on Formal to Practical Software Verification and Composition, VeryComp 2016 (2016-07-04 - 2016-07-08), Vienna, Austria
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155

Abstract

Spreadsheet systems are live programming environments. Both the data and the code are right in front you, and if you edit either of them, the effects are immediately visible. Unfortunately, spreadsheets lack mechanisms for abstraction, such as classes, function definitions etc. Programming languages excel at abstraction, but most mainstream languages or integrated development environments (IDEs) do not support the interactive, live feedback loop of spreadsheets. As a result, exploring and testing of code is cumbersome and indirect. In this paper we propose a method to bring both worlds closer together, by juxtaposing ordinary code and spreadsheet-like grids in the IDE, called TrueGrid. Using TrueGrid spreadsheet cells can be programmed with a fully featured programming language. Spreadsheet users then may enjoy benefits of source code, including added abstractions, syntax highlighting, version control, etc. On the other hand, programmers may leverage the grid for interactive exploring and testing of code. We illustrate these benefits using a prototype implementation of True- Grid that runs in the browser and uses Javascript as a programming language.