Object spreadsheets: a new computational model for end-user development of data-centric web applications
Spreadsheets offer many advantages as the computational and data-storage engine for applications that are authored by end users. Paradoxically, however, their main failing in this regard is their computational model. Despite being used in almost all cases to represent data that is essentially relati...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
Association for Computing Machinery
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116148 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4814-5148 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3306-5084 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4864-078X |
| _version_ | 1811071483012710400 |
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| author | McCutchen, Richard Matthew Itzhaky, Shachar Jackson, Daniel |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory McCutchen, Richard Matthew Itzhaky, Shachar Jackson, Daniel |
| author_sort | McCutchen, Richard Matthew |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Spreadsheets offer many advantages as the computational and data-storage engine for applications that are authored by end users. Paradoxically, however, their main failing in this regard is their computational model. Despite being used in almost all cases to represent data that is essentially relational (with some hierarchical structuring), the spreadsheet model treats the two-dimensional grid as largely unstructured, with formulas linking cells in an ad hoc way.
This paper reports on a quest to rethink the spreadsheet model. The model we propose supports not only conventional flat tables, but also nested variable-size lists and object references. It includes a formula language suited to the data model and procedures to specify updates.
The model has been implemented in a tool called Object Spreadsheets, which is intended for the development of data-centric web applications. We describe several example applications we built using the tool to demonstrate its applicability. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:51:50Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/116148 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:51:50Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1161482022-09-26T08:49:55Z Object spreadsheets: a new computational model for end-user development of data-centric web applications McCutchen, Richard Matthew Itzhaky, Shachar Jackson, Daniel Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science McCutchen, Richard Matthew Itzhaky, Shachar Jackson, Daniel Spreadsheets offer many advantages as the computational and data-storage engine for applications that are authored by end users. Paradoxically, however, their main failing in this regard is their computational model. Despite being used in almost all cases to represent data that is essentially relational (with some hierarchical structuring), the spreadsheet model treats the two-dimensional grid as largely unstructured, with formulas linking cells in an ad hoc way. This paper reports on a quest to rethink the spreadsheet model. The model we propose supports not only conventional flat tables, but also nested variable-size lists and object references. It includes a formula language suited to the data model and procedures to specify updates. The model has been implemented in a tool called Object Spreadsheets, which is intended for the development of data-centric web applications. We describe several example applications we built using the tool to demonstrate its applicability. Wistron Corporation National Science Foundation (U.S.) 2018-06-06T18:17:20Z 2018-06-06T18:17:20Z 2016-11 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper 978-1-4503-4076-2 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116148 McCutchen, Matt, et al. "Object Spreadsheets: A New Computational Model for End-User Development of Data-Centric Web Applications." Onward! 2016 Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software, 2-4 November, 2016, Amsterdam, Netherlands, ACM Press, 2016, pp. 112–27. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4814-5148 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3306-5084 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4864-078X en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2986012.2986018 Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software - Onward! 2016 Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Association for Computing Machinery MIT Web Domain |
| spellingShingle | McCutchen, Richard Matthew Itzhaky, Shachar Jackson, Daniel Object spreadsheets: a new computational model for end-user development of data-centric web applications |
| title | Object spreadsheets: a new computational model for end-user development of data-centric web applications |
| title_full | Object spreadsheets: a new computational model for end-user development of data-centric web applications |
| title_fullStr | Object spreadsheets: a new computational model for end-user development of data-centric web applications |
| title_full_unstemmed | Object spreadsheets: a new computational model for end-user development of data-centric web applications |
| title_short | Object spreadsheets: a new computational model for end-user development of data-centric web applications |
| title_sort | object spreadsheets a new computational model for end user development of data centric web applications |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116148 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4814-5148 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3306-5084 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4864-078X |
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