Pending geeky spreadsheet app

[Baggypants]

If you read /. you've probably already seen this article on a spreadsheet with IronPython functionality

http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/09/27/first-look-at-resolver-an-ironpython-based-spreadsheet/

What do the bigger brains of the forum think of this? apart from it looks fairly obvious its unlikely to be cross platform.

[OPENSTEP]

Well, offhand it looks like an interesting way to try and integrate "function pointers" into a spreadsheet. Unfortunately, the example seems to be more along the lines of referencing objects and functions implemented in various languages and trying to tie them together via a spreadsheet interface. My first reaction is that a spreadsheet interface probably isn't a very good way to write "driver" programs to bind together pieces in disparate languages. Spreadsheets can easily turn into an organizational mess and the spooky action at a distance could be difficult to trace heavens forbid you encounter an error due to order of execution.

Function pointers in spreadsheets are a fun idea, however, but I think they can be implemented in a better fashion than literal function pointers. I would suspect there's already some type of an "eval" function that can evaluate a formula stored as text contents within a cell. Add some regexes and you can parameterize it, etc. This may already exist, and I'm sure it can be kludged in somehow

ed