Today I read a paper titled “Breaking Out of the Cell: On The Benefits of a New Spreadsheet User-Interaction Paradigm”
The abstract is:
Contemporary spreadsheets are plagued by a profusion of errors, auditing difficulties, lack of uniform development methodologies, and barriers to easy comprehension of the underlying business models they represent.
This paper presents a case that most of these difficulties stem from the fact that the standard spreadsheet user-interaction paradigm – the ‘cell-matrix’ approach – is appropriate for spreadsheet data presentation but has significant drawbacks with respect to spreadsheet creation, maintenance and comprehension when workbooks pass a minimal threshold of complexity.
An alternative paradigm for the automated generation of spreadsheets directly from plain-language business model descriptions is presented along with its potential benefits.
Sunsight Modeller (TM), a working software system implementing the suggested paradigm, is briefly described.