Checkout ironcalc if you are looking for spreadsheet alternatives https://www.ironcalc.com/index.html

Argh, the Claude-written text is painful to read.

The way Excel formulas so easily break drove me to create https://www.treesum.app/.

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

I sometimes feel the world is slowly reinventing BusinessObjects

Imagine a world where we starting teaching SQL in primary school..

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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