Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-j7cmm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-07T08:52:55.884Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

NEXCEL, a deductive spreadsheet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2007

ILIANO CERVESATO
ILIANO CERVESATO
Affiliation:
Deductive Solutions, 4903 Regina Drive, Annandale, VA 22003, USA; e-mail: iliano@deductivesolutions.com
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Usability and usefulness have made the spreadsheet one of the most successful computing applications of all times: millions rely on it every day for anything from typing grocery lists to developing multimillion-dollar budgets. One thing spreadsheets are not very good at is manipulating the symbolic data and helping users make decisions based on them. By tapping into recent research in Logic Programming, Databases and Cognitive Psychology, we propose a deductive extension to the spreadsheet paradigm that precisely addresses this issue. The accompanying tool, which we call NEXCEL, is intended as an automated assistant for the daily reasoning and decision-making needs of computer users, in the same way as a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel assists them every day with simple and complex calculations. Users without formal training in Logic or even Computer Science can interactively define logical rules in the same simple way as they define formulas in Excel. NEXCEL immediately evaluates these rules, thereby returning lists of values that satisfy them, again just like with numerical formulas. The deductive component is seamlessly integrated into the traditional spreadsheet so that a user not only still has access to the usual functionalities but is also able to use them as part of the logical inference and, dually, to embed deductive steps in a numerical calculation.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Knowledge Engineering Review , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 221 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

References

Blackwell, A. 2002 First steps in programming: a rationale for attention investment models. In Conference on Human-Centric Computing Languages and Environments. IEEE Computer Society, pp. 2–10.Google Scholar
Boehm, B. W., Abts, C., Brown, A., Chulani, S., Horowitz, E., Madachy, R., Reifer, D., Clark, B. K. and Steece, B. 2000 Software Cost Estimation with COCOMO II, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Ceri, S., Gottlob, G. and Tanca, L. 1990 Logic Programming and Databases, Springer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cervesato, I. 2005 The deductive spreadsheet. Technical Report DS05-02, Deductive Solutions. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.Google Scholar
Cheng, M. H. M., van Emden, M. H. and Lee, J. H.-M. 1988 Tables as a user interface for logic programs, in ‘Fifth Generation Computer Systems’, pp. 784–791.Google Scholar
Colomb, R. M. 1998 Deductive Databases and their Applications, London: Taylor & Francis.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, T. and Petre, M. 1996 Usability analysis of visual programming environments: a cognitive dimensions framework. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing 7, 131–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gupta, G. and Akhter, S. 2000 Knowledgesheet: A graphical spreadsheet interface for interactively developing a class of constraint programs. In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages. Boston, MA: Springer Verlag LNCS 1753, pp. 308–323.Google Scholar
Kriwaczek, F. 1982 Some applications of Prolog to decision support systems. Master’s thesis, Imperial College, London, UK.Google Scholar
Kriwaczek, F. 1988 Logicalc: a Prolog spreadsheet, Machine intelligence.Google Scholar
Lloyd, J. W. 1987 Foundations of Logic Programming, 2nd extended edn. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panko, R. R. 1998 What we know about spreadsheet errors. Journal of End User Computing (Special issue on Scaling Up End User Development) 10(2), 15–21. Available at www.panko.cba.hawaii.edu/ssr/Mypapers/whatknow.htm.Google Scholar
Peyton Jones, S., Blackwell, A. and Burnett, M. 2003 A user-centred approach to functions in Excel. In Proceedings of the eighth ACM SIGPLAN international conference on Functional programming, Uppsala, Sweden: ACM Press, pp. 165–176.Google Scholar
Power, D. 10/04/2003 A brief history of spreadsheets. Available at www.dssresources.com/history/sshistory.html. DSSResources.Com.Google Scholar
Smith, D. E., Genesereth, M. R. and Ginsberg, M. L. 1986 Controlling recursive inference, Artificial Intelligence 30(3), 343–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spenke, M. and Beilken, C. 1989 A spreadsheet interface for logic programming. In CHI ’89: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, pp. 75–80.Google Scholar
van Emden, M. H., Ohki, M. and Takeuchi, A. 1986 Spreadsheets with incremental queries as a user interface for logic programming. New Generation Computing 4(3), 287–304.Google Scholar
Warren, D. S. 1998 Programming with tabling in XSB, In Gries, D. and de Roever, W. P. (eds.), Programming Concepts and Methods, IFIP TC2/WG2.2,2.3 International Conference on Programming Concepts and Methods (PROCOMET’98), Vol. 125 of IFIP Conference Proceedings, Shelter Island, NY: Chapman & Hall, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar
Workshop on Logical Spreadsheets 2005 Available at www.wols05.stanford.edu.Google Scholar