Re: Calc research & funcalc ...

Thanks for the encouragement Alexander!

On Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 5:14 AM Alexander Bock <albo@itu.dk> wrote:

> Hi Trent,
>
> About a year ago, I thought up an idea on my own very like Funcalc, that I
> called Scriptsheets.  At the time, I did not know Funcalc and its
> predecessors, going back about 20 years, existed.  I briefly though I had
> had a Very Original Idea.  Alas, it was not so.  See:
> https://haskell.markmail.org/search/?q=scriptsheets .
>
>
> Cool! Funcalc doesn’t go 20 years back. The original inspiration came from
> a 2003 paper by Simon Peyton-Jones et al. called: “A User-Centred Approach
> to Functions in Excel” which suggested the idea but did not implement
> AFAIK. There are a few papers on the subject on my supervisor’s site as
> well as other resources which I linked earlier.
>
> There have been some attempts at scripting spreadsheets (even with
> Haskell) but I do not recall the titles. Also, there was a document that
> described a spreadsheet implemented in the functional language Clean (I/O)
> which had some interesting features. For example, I believe lazy evaluation
> was used to only update cells that were needed to show the current visible
> section of the spreadsheet.
>
> Given that I am one person, and woefully under-prepared in computer
> science to accomplish my goals, the odds are I won't get very far on my
> roadmap before getting distracted.
>
>
> My own background is biotechnology, so do not let your background
> discourage you.
>
> Even if I do embark on step 5, the odds are it will wind up as Java-based
> abandonware like Frege or Jython.
>
>
> At this stage in your journey, doing is learning which in my opinion is
> more important than worrying if your software will be abandoned at some
> point in the future.
>
> But that is not why I am writing.  Can I prevail on the good graces of
> either of you to look through my first draft prospectus for Scriptsheets to
> see if, against all odds, there is anything of interest in it?  I would
> REALLY appreciate feedback from someone involved with spreadsheet
> professional programming or research.  The text runs 31 dry, boring pages.
> I finished it 2017-11-02.
>
>
> I am in the final stages of my PhD and barely have time for anything else
> at the moment, so I will unfortunately have to respectfully decline :/
> hopefully someone on the mailing list with more time can help.
>
> Mvh/Best regards,
>
> *Alexander Asp Bock*, PhD student
> Computer Science Department <https://computerscience.wikit.itu.dk/>
> IT University of Copenhagen <http://en.itu.dk/>
>
> On 19 Sep 2018, at 09.04, trent shipley <trent.shipley@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> About a year ago, I thought up an idea on my own very like Funcalc, that I
> called Scriptsheets.  At the time, I did not know Funcalc and its
> predecessors, going back about 20 years, existed.  I briefly though I had
> had a Very Original Idea.  Alas, it was not so.  See:
> https://haskell.markmail.org/search/?q=scriptsheets .
>
>
> I have only a degree in mathematics (at which was was not very good) and a
> community college certificate in computer programming from the CIS
> department (at which I did quite well).
>
> At present, my plan is to:
>
>    1. Finish the Haskell book I'm working on (Hutton 2016) to get some
>    exposure to functional programming.
>    2. Work my way through a book on writing compilers in Java. (Ronald
>    Mak 2009, or maybe I'll get something newer by then.)
>    3. Work through the Calc/Funcalc book.
>    4. Translate the Calc/Funcalc programs from C# into Java.
>    5. Start the Scriptsheets project.
>
> Given that I am one person, and woefully under-prepared in computer
> science to accomplish my goals, the odds are I won't get very far on my
> roadmap before getting distracted.  Even if I do embark on step 5, the odds
> are it will wind up as Java-based abandonware like Frege or Jython.
>
> But that is not why I am writing.  Can I prevail on the good graces of
> either of you to look through my first draft prospectus for Scriptsheets to
> see if, against all odds, there is anything of interest in it?  I would
> REALLY appreciate feedback from someone involved with spreadsheet
> professional programming or research.  The text runs 31 dry, boring pages.
> I finished it 2017-11-02.
>
> Regards,
>
> Trent.
>
> On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 2:56 AM Michael Meeks <michael.meeks@collabora.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Alexander,
> >
> > On 18/09/18 10:26, Alexander Bock wrote:
> > > I would be delighted to join one of the hackfests if time allows. Is
> > > there a schedule available somewhere?
> >
> >         We typically have one in Hamburg at some stage in the year - which
> > would be near you; the ESC minutes have details on all of those as they
> > come up (posted to this list weekly). We also have a larger hackfest in
> > Brussels before or after FOSDEM - which is an excellent conference to
> > attend anyway =)
> >
> > > I know of EUSPRIG as well and their horror stories
> > > <http://eusprig.org/horror-stories.htm>
> >
> >         Some good stories there =) Thanks for the list of conferences.
> >
> > > Do you run any of the generated OpenCL kernels in parallel or do you run
> > > a normal sequential recalculation and call the kernel code as necessary?
> > > I would suspect the latter given the information you have provided so
> > far :)
> >
> >         Only in very recent times (the last generation) has typical GPU
> > hardware become capable of running multiple kernels simultaneously
> > and/or pre-empting running kernels. This leads to amusing situations -
> > whereby moving the mouse while a long running sheet calculates would
> > simply not be able to render - until a Windows / TDR was triggered. We
> > had to come up with heuristics to break down the CL workload into
> > bite-sized chunks to avoid this. More modern hardware doesn't have this
> > issue though.
> >
> >         And yes, we use CL when we think it makes sense - based on
> > weights and
> > complexity of the relevant formulae. Otherwise we use the old
> > interpreter (or now its threaded variant - again depending on complexity).
> >
> >         HTH,
> >
> >                 Michael.
> >
> > --
> > michael.meeks@collabora.com <><, GM Collabora Productivity
> > Hangout: mejmeeks@gmail.com, Skype: mmeeks
> > (M) +44 7795 666 147 <+44%207795%20666147> - timezone usually UK / Europe
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