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Pure Functional Programming in Excel • Felienne Hermans • GOTO 2016

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  • Recommended by 7 people: 5 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters and 1 in engineering communities.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2016 to 2024.
  • Presented by Felienne Hermans, Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

25K views10 years ago7 recommendations

Programming languagesSoftware designFunctional programmingSimplicity and complexity

Felienne Hermans explains how Microsoft Excel functions as a pure functional language and demonstrates implementing complex algorithms using spreadsheet formulas.

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Amsterdam 2016 gotoams.nl Felienne Hermans - Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology @felienne ABSTRACT This talk is about the world's most popular programming language...Java? Python? COBOL? No... Excel! Excel somehow hits the sweet spot between being powerful enough to run entire domains like finance and insurance, but also easy enough to attract a huge audience. Why is that? In this talk we'll explore some of the mechanisms that make spreadsheets so powerful, while implementing a few interesting mathematical problems in spreadsheets. While doing that, you might learn some (functional) programming concepts too, as we'll talk about sorting, dynamic programming and lambdas. [...] Download slides and read the full abstract here: gotocon.com/amsterdam-2016/presentation/Pure%20Functional%20… RECOMMENDED BOOKS Felienne Hermans • The Programmer's Brain • amzn.to/3mENbN0 Daniel Kahneman • Thinking, Fast and Slow • amzn.to/2XmJEtf bsky.app/profile/gotocon.com twitter.com/GOTOcon linkedin.com/company/goto- instagram.com/goto_con facebook.com/GOTOConferences #Excel #FunctionalProgramming #ExcelProgramming #FP #Programming #ProgrammingExcel #SpreadsheetProgramming #FelienneHermans CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUS Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks: youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/join Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket at gotopia.tech Sign up for updates and specials at gotopia.tech/newsletter SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL - new videos posted almost daily. youtube.com/user/GotoConferences/?sub_confirmation=1

Why it's here

7 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an engaging and eye-opening demonstration of how Microsoft Excel functions as a pure functional programming language.

rzzzton Hacker News • Recommends

On “History of Logo”

OT, but Felienne has a great talk on functional programming in Excel (thanks for reminding me of her name): link to this video

dvicenteon Lobsters • Recommends

"Pure Functional Programming in Excel" by Felienne Hermans (2016)

u/rick-rebelin r/functionalprogramming • Recommends

Pure Functional Programming in Excel by Felienne Hermans presented at GOTO Conference

vanderZwanon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback”

Excel itself is functional and reactive already, wouldn't adding an FRP language on top of that be a bit superfluous? Check out Felienne Hermans' work if you haven't already: link to this video link

broheeon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Scientists rename human genes to stop MS Excel from misreading them as dates”

You may enjoy "Pure Functional Programming in Excel" by Felienne Hermans presented at GOTO 2016 link to this video

ggrrhh_taon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The worst of the two worlds: Excel meets Outlook”

This is the talk that I first saw that builds on that: link to this video I found it interesting, fun and great. Still, I would stick to using Excel for the personal analysis of data and not as the language/tool on which software is developed: data & programming logic intermixed, the default way to index cells, the difference between normal cells and array cells, and tables, etc., the fact that some things are just not possible to do fully programmatically without creating your own VB functions and therefore asking recipients of what looks like data to accept running arbitrary code in their machines, etc.

robertknighton Hacker News • Recommends

On “CellLVM: A proof-of-concept LLVM to Excel spreadsheet compiler”

Related to this, I recommend Felienne Hermans' talks on Excel as a functional programming language - link to this video .

molsongoldenon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Spreadsheet is a software development paradigm”

Also see the research of Felienne Hermans and her talk “Pure Functional Programming in Excel.”1 1 link to this video

vanderZwanon Hacker News • Mentions

On “New Zealand's $16B health dept managed finances with single Excel spreadsheet”

And once again Felienne Hermans is proven right about the world running on spreadsheets and that we should take them a lot more seriously for that reason alone. 0 link to this video

u/eddieantonioin r/compsci • Mentions

On “Is ict a part of CS?”

As others said, mention specifically your experience with HTML and Dreamweaver. That's programming! Mention Excel. Excel is the most widely used programming language. According to CS prof Dr. Felienne Hermans, Excel is so successful at being programming that people don't even realize they're programming! Good luck in applying for college! I hope you get into a good CS program :)