R help - Aug 2007 - Excel (off-topic, sort of)

Except for the ability to perform circular recalculation, I believe that the
closest programming analogy to a spreadsheet is a functional programming
language.  Check out Haskell (or LISP or Erlang) to do what you describe.

-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch [mailto:r-help-bounces at
stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Fran?ois Pinard
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 11:36 AM
To: Alberto Monteiro
Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R] Excel (off-topic, sort of)

[Alberto Monteiro]
> Maybe I'll write a letter to Santa Claus [there are people
> who write to congressman; they must have more faith than me].
:-) :-)
> I wish a language where I can write
>  a = b + 10
> and then when I write
>  a = 20
> the language automatically assigns b = 10.
METAFONT does this (and consequently, Metapost as well).  I still 
remember my surprise when I found out that Donald Knuth resorts to such 
sophisticated machinery for the sole purpose of designing font 
characters.  Knuth surely did many wonderful things :-).

-- 
Fran?ois Pinard   http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca

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***********************************************************************
Bear Stearns is not responsible for any recommendation, soli...{{dropped}}

Try prolog. You can do this sort of programming there.




Albicelli, Nicholas (Exchange) wrote:
> 
> Except for the ability to perform circular recalculation, I believe that
> the closest programming analogy to a spreadsheet is a functional
> programming language.  Check out Haskell (or LISP or Erlang) to do what
> you describe.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Fran?ois Pinard
> Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 11:36 AM
> To: Alberto Monteiro
> Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: Re: [R] Excel (off-topic, sort of)
> 
> [Alberto Monteiro]
> 
>> Maybe I'll write a letter to Santa Claus [there are people
>> who write to congressman; they must have more faith than me].
> 
> :-) :-)
> 
>> I wish a language where I can write
> 
>>  a = b + 10
> 
>> and then when I write
> 
>>  a = 20
> 
>> the language automatically assigns b = 10.
> 
> METAFONT does this (and consequently, Metapost as well).  I still 
> remember my surprise when I found out that Donald Knuth resorts to such 
> sophisticated machinery for the sole purpose of designing font 
> characters.  Knuth surely did many wonderful things :-).
> 
> -- 
> Fran?ois Pinard   http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> 
> 
> ***********************************************************************
> Bear Stearns is not responsible for any recommendation, soli...{{dropped}}
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> 
-- 
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