I remember reading an early criticism of the spreadsheet side of OOXML, where a simple spreadsheet with three cells was created: A1 containing '1', B1 containing '2', and C1 containing the formula A1+B1. That spreadsheet was saved, the file opened in an editor which showed the values of the cells, and A1 changed to something else, say 3. This broke the spreadsheet, as there were all sorts of knock-on effects contained in the virtually opaque mess that followed the cell contents.

I've probably got the details wrong, but that was the gist of it. I'd love to rediscover the analysis, but my searches have not yielded it.

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itsthecourier 2 days ago | parent [-]

exactly, the author ignored the specs and try to come with conclusions of a system, just by doing a Hello World

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EdwardCoffin 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think the point of the criticism I read was that the edit should have worked. There is no reason why the opaque mess following what was obviously a definition of the contents of the spreadsheet should even be there let alone be dependent on the original contents of the cells.

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jeroenhd 2 days ago | parent [-]

The obvious reason to have other stuff depend on the value of the cell would be to store a cache alongside the formulae. In a 300MiB XSLX, you don't want to evaluate every formula every time the spreadsheet is opened.

	▲	EdwardCoffin 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		If caches have a place in a file storage format, they should at least be optional and separate from mandatory content, and I got the impression from the critique that they were neither.