Excel The Ultimate

How treating Excel Workbooks as persistentreactive data structures ca ease your work and increase business adoption/velocity.

Transcript

1. Excel the Ultimate Christophe Grand @cgrand Soft Shake 2013
2. Who am I? • Christophe Grand, @cgrand • Early Clojure adopter (5+ years) • Clojure Programming co-author • Independent dev, trainer, associated in http://lambdanext.eu/
3. Maslow’s hierarchy of PL Rub Physiologial Security Love, belonging Esteem Self-actualization
4. Maslow’s hierarchy of PL Rub ASM, C Physiologial Security Love, belonging Esteem Self-actualization
5. Maslow’s hierarchy of PL Rub ASM, C Java, C# Physiologial Security Love, belonging Esteem Self-actualization
6. Maslow’s hierarchy of PL Rub ASM, C Java, C# Ruby, Python, JS Physiologial Security Love, belonging Esteem Self-actualization
7. Maslow’s hierarchy of PL Rub ASM, C Java, C# CLJ, Haskell Ruby, Python, JS Physiologial Security Love, belonging Esteem Self-actualization
8. Maslow’s hierarchy of PL Rub ASM, C Java, C# CLJ, Haskell Excel Ruby, Python, JS Physiologial Security Love, belonging Esteem Self-actualization
9. Spreadsheets are underrated
10. Formula Language • The #1 functional language • ok maybe not that functional • but expression-based • IF is not a statement • and pure
11. Spreadsheets are cool • Reactive • Live feedback • Declarative • No one cares when/where evaluation happens • The grid is legacy though
12. Reinventing them • Ken Tilton’s Cells (Common Lisp) • clojurescript Javelin • visi-lang • SubText • ...
13. Let’s leverage what we already have!
14. I’m tired of • reverse-engineering a spreadsheet to turn in into real code • only to get a revised version next morning
15. Double inefficiency • More grunt work for devs • Business users are not free/agile anymore • Rules set in stone • Update delays
16. Business excelers • Business users able to model their stuff in a spreadsheet should be an asset not a liability for IT • More power to them! • unless you want more rogue IT
17. Upload Business Logic now! The killer button
18. Spreadmap • http://github.com/cgrand/spreadmap • Based on POI • But lightweight • Workbook as data
19. POI • Allow you to read/write/evaluate XLS • Workbooks objects • Expensive to create/clone • Memory footprint
20. ForkedEvaluator • Little hidden gem of POI • Lightweight evaluation-only workbook • Crippled impl • Taught me how to rebuild it in Clojure
21. Here we go! Demo
22. Power to the users! • Allowing key users to customize apps • Have their XLS logic tapping db, events, etc. • Always on • A super IFTTT for the enterprise
23. Risk assessment • You can efficiently test workbooks • Unit tests • Regression tests • Compare with previous version based on history
24. Parallel execution • Map/reduce your XLS • Exploring what-if scenarios • Optimization
25. Your imagination is the only limit! Thanks!