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arXiv:2309.00115cs.SE

Excel as a Turing-complete Functional Programming Environment

Peter Bartholomew

Early discovery. Linked by one identifiable commenter. This paper is outside the main ranking; a mention is not an endorsement.

Abstract

Since the calculation engine of Excel was the subject of a major upgrade to accommodate Dynamic Arrays in 2018 there has been a series of seismic changes to the art of building spreadsheet solutions. This paper will show the ad-hoc end user practices of traditional spreadsheets can be replaced by radically different approaches that have far more in common with formal programming. It is too early to guess the extent to which the new functionality will be adopted by the business and engineering communities and the impact that may have upon risk. Nevertheless, some trends are emerging from pioneering work within the Excel community which we will discuss here.

arXiv comments
14 page, 6 figures
Journal reference
EuSpRIG Proceedings 2023, ISBN: 978-1-905404-57-5
DOI
Subjects
cs.SESoftware Engineering

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Linked by 1 identifiable commenter in 1 comment across 1 thread, from May 2026 to May 2026.

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Discussed in comments1 thread

  1. An Usable Minimal Programming Language? 1 comment

    • Obviously general purpose programming language(s) excluded[0]. -- per 'minimal' Does usable / minimal mean no ecosystem / integrated development environment? No ecosystem/IDE would seem to exclude command line shell & unix 'one program does one thing well'chaining/sourcing.…

      sargstuffView on HNParent context

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