From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,793e1aa9e9b478a3,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Dr. Robert Leif" Subject: Re Spreadsheets Date: 1997/01/15 Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970115084420.006bd570@mail.4dcomm.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 210038861 sender: Ada programming language x-sender: rleif@mail.4dcomm.com comments: To: "Prof. Robert Dewar" content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada x-mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: 1997-01-15T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: From: Bob Leif To: Robert Dewar et al. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ Robert Dewar wrote on Sat, 11 Jan 1997 16:20:30 -0500 Subject: Re: What is wrong with OO ? SNIP "People will learn what is at hand pretty much regardless of whether something is easy to learn and use. After all I am sure that far more programs are written using macro languages of spread sheets, most of which are truly awful, very difficult to use, and pretty difficult to learn. Nevertheless people do at least "sort of" learn something regardless. Actually elsewhere in his article, Bjarne complains of this phenomenon :-)" "By the way just a quick note on spreadsheet languages. I saw a couple of years ago a fairly comprehensive study of spread sheet programs (if you don't think of spread sheets as a programming language, then you don't know what people are trying to do with these programs :-) It showed that over 50% of production spread sheets in use at Fortune 500 companies that were studied contained serious errors. Now of course any such survey is subject to concerns about sampling stability. Still one would think that such a result would spread wide alarm, but as far as I can tell everyone shrugged and continued ("it must be the other guy who has all the errors, I am sure my spreadsheets are fine!")" Snip ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- I totally agree with Prof. Dewar's statements concerning spreadsheets. However, the utilization of spreadsheets is one of the causes of the lack of great profitability and the limited sales and use of Ada compilers. Compilers are at the top of the software pyramid. They are only used by the developers, who though limited in numbers, produce the applications which are sold to the huge end user market. The vast majority of people who program do not use compilers. They use spreadsheets. Unfortunately, none of the existing spreadsheets have had Ada's requirement that they be based on software engineering principles. There was a discussion at Tri-Ada '96 concerning "The Future of Programming Languages". I made a mundane comment on the importance of spreadsheets, which was ignored. I have previously argued (1) that formal => actual parameter Ada syntax for subprogram calls was excellent for a macro language. If AdaSAGE or similar program were to include spreadsheet functionality, then an Ada product would meet the very significant commercial need of a business software development product which can be easily maintained, tested, and audited. The Improv spreadsheet, which was terminated by Lotus, was the only one I know of that had even a small beginning of a rational design. It, at least, employed user definable field names for the columns and unique identifiers (primary key) for the rows. Improv also kept the formulas separate from the cells. A strongly typed spreadsheet should distinguish between columns and rows which contain data and those which contain the results of calculations. The underlying data should be persistent objects in a database and the spreadsheet should be a way to manipulate the data in the database including serving as a design tool for the database. (1) R. C. Leif, "Commercializing Ada". ACM Ada Letters 16 pp. 44-45 (1996). Robert C. Leif, Ph.D., PMIAC, Vice President & Research Director Ada_Med, A Division of Newport Instruments Tel. & Fax (619) 582-0437 Please send e-mail to my new address, rleif@rleif.com Thank you.