Elastic sheet-defined functions: Generalising spreadsheet functions to variable-size input arrays. (21st August 2020)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Elastic sheet-defined functions: Generalising spreadsheet functions to variable-size input arrays. (21st August 2020)
- Main Title:
- Elastic sheet-defined functions: Generalising spreadsheet functions to variable-size input arrays
- Authors:
- MCCUTCHEN, MATT
BORGHOUTS, JUDITH
GORDON, ANDREW D.
PEYTON JONES, SIMON
SARKAR, ADVAIT - Abstract:
- Abstract: Sheet-defined functions (SDFs) bring modularity and abstraction to the world of spreadsheets. Alas, end users naturally write SDFs that work over fixed-size arrays, which limits their reusability. To help end user programmers write more reusable SDFs, we describe a principled approach to generalising such functions to become elastic SDFs that work over inputs of arbitrary size. We prove that under natural, checkable conditions, our algorithm returns the principal generalisation of an input SDF. We describe a formal semantics and several efficient implementation strategies for elastic SDFs. A user study with spreadsheet users compares the human experience of programming with elastic SDFs to the alternative of relying on array-processing combinators. Our user study finds that the cognitive load of elastic SDFs is lower than for SDFs with map/reduce array combinators, the closest alternative solution.
- Is Part Of:
- Journal of functional programming. Volume 30(2020)
- Journal:
- Journal of functional programming
- Issue:
- Volume 30(2020)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 30, Issue 2020 (2020)
- Year:
- 2020
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 2020
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2020-0030-2020-0000
- Page Start:
- Page End:
- Publication Date:
- 2020-08-21
- Subjects:
- Functional programming (Computer science) -- Periodicals
- Journal URLs:
- http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=JFP ↗
http://firstsearch.oclc.org ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1017/S0956796820000234 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0956-7968
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library STI - ELD Digital store
- Ingest File:
- 14652.xml