| ▲ | Adding Window Functions to a Spreadsheet(getgrist.com) |
| 17 points by reedciccio an hour ago | 11 comments |
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| ▲ | halo a minute ago | parent | next [-] |
| I sometimes feel the world is slowly reinventing BusinessObjects |
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| ▲ | librasteve 17 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I’m all in favour of making spreadsheets better, with code friendly formulas. Here’s one I’m working on - somewhat earlier in dev cycle than grist and while I did consider Python (and lua) for the formula DSL decided to cook up my own. All feedback good and bad v welcome. https://omasheet.org |
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| ▲ | seemaze 11 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Imagine a world where we starting teaching SQL in primary school.. |
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| ▲ | librasteve 9 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I imagine a world where LLM makes languages like SQL akin to middle English (ie a specialist skill taught to graduates and up) |
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| ▲ | shevy-java an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The syntax is so archaic ... it really is anything
but a thing of beauty. prev_balance = PREVIOUS(rec, order_by="Date").Running_Balance or 0
prev_balance + $Amount
It's such a strange mix-up of stuff. PREVIOUS() is a macro or looks
like one, right? But it is a function call assumingly. But then what's
with .Running_Balance? Guess that also ties into a function. But why
use different syntax for essentially the same thing? It seems rather
weird to write code like that. What would the python variant be like?
Or a DSL?The syntax strangeness continues: rates = Rates.lookupRecords(Person=$Person, order_by="Rate_Start")
rates.find.le($Date).Hourly_Rate
Does that really convey most easily what is wanted? It seems needlessly
verbose. Why would it require both $Person and $Date? Should that not
be easier to figure out in its own right? Is that efficient?People need to remember that mentally, unless they use AI. |
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| ▲ | whizzter 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I think it's an push in Spreadsheets to become more "DB-alike" for less arbitrary results (like in the problem example the article starts out with) but kind-of misguided since it's complicated to do "easy things". The root issue is that there's almost 50 years of spreadsheet syntax to consider and not colliding with. | |
| ▲ | paulfitz 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It is straight Python. Yes the spreadsheet habit of making functions SHOUT does look weird mixed in with Python syntax. PREVIOUS returns a record, then .Running_Balance pulls out one field of it. | | |
| ▲ | chii 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | That's what makes it clunky. Returning a record is OK, but then a record is basically what spreadsheets are (ala, a table). Except records are named columns in a spreadsheet, and accessing it using a dot syntax looks out of place imho. I reckon it makes more sense to return a table, and then have an index lookup in that table: e.g., index(PREVIOUS(blah_blah), column). Then you can also use an indirection to choose which column from another cell if desired. This is how google finance in sheets returns some data (like exchange rates, iirc). | |
| ▲ | whizzter 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | What parts are Python and how does one know where the classic Spreadsheet functionality ends and Python starts ? | | |
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| ▲ | librasteve 7 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | hmmm sigils, eh? |
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