VisiCalc Creator Developing WikiCalc 139
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has an article about a new wiki that is trying to combine the collaboration of wiki technology and the data manipulation attributes of a spreadsheet. The creator of VisiCalc, Dan Bricklin, is working on an alpha version of WikiCalc for sometime late in February." From the article: "'It holds a lot of promise, both because it's using the spreadsheet metaphor, which is the one thing people know for working with quantitative information and because 'there's nobody better in the world to build this thing,' said Ross Mayfield, CEO of collaboration software maker SocialText. To Mayfield, WikiCalc is the answer to a problem that has been percolating for some time in the world of IT. That is, he said, that spreadsheets have traditionally been a single-user application screaming for functionality that could let multiple people edit data quickly and easily. "
Yup, exactly what buisness needs (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, why not just a regular wiki anyway? I figure 90-95% of all the spreadsheets I see don't do any calculations, they're just used as a way to put things in columns.
Re:Yup, exactly what buisness needs (Score:2)
Do regular wikis have column and cell editing features? Most of what I'm familiar with work like line editors.
Re:Yup, exactly what buisness needs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yup, exactly what buisness needs (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yup, exactly what buisness needs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yup, exactly what buisness needs (Score:4, Insightful)
And I giggle because I'm a dino running on old, obsolete mainframe technology where the end user can't just slap something together and put it into production.
a way to put things in columns (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I was disappointed when I found that spreadsheets only ran the formulas forward so that if I typed in A1=2*B2 it wouldn't work out B2 from A1. Seems almost as useless as formattable grid to me.
Re:a way to put things in columns (Score:3, Funny)
Re:a way to put things in columns (Score:2)
Your kidding right???
Re:a way to put things in columns (Score:1)
Given the example, what if B2 contains a formula which itself (recursively, conditionally) depends on A1?
Only if the spreadsheet app contains or has access to a reasonably sophisticated CAS (Computer Algebra System) like Maple or Mathematica can you expect it perform well in this regard.
Re:a way to put things in columns (Score:2)
Re:a way to put things in columns (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:a way to put things in columns (Score:2)
Just remember, it's BURIED.
Re:Yup, exactly what buisness needs (Score:4, Insightful)
This is exactly the reason that one of my favorite apps, OmniOutliner [omnigroup.com] (Mac OS X) was created.
"when the Excel product manager got up on stage at MacWorld several years ago and said, "We've found that 85% of our customers use Excel just to make lists and outlines," we (Omni) said, "Shoot, that'll be our next product. We can do a GOOD job of making lists and outlines, and sell it for a lot less."" -- Wil Shipley, Omni co-founder [wilshipley.com]
It seems like there might be a market opening up in the "things that people are already misusing Office for" sector.
Alas, it works just the other way around (Score:2)
mod parent "insightful" (Score:2)
Most people I work for seem to think "oh, Excel. Great--something we can use to make tables!"
They'd be shocked to know it calculates.
Re:Yup, exactly what buisness needs (Score:2)
Prior art? (Score:5, Funny)
a new wiki that is trying to combine the collaboration of wiki technology and the data manipulation attributes of a spreadsheet.
Isn't that how Enron ran its entire accounting department?
Prior bad art (Score:2)
No, they just lied and made stuff up. No need for any data entry, ingenuity or even common sense.
Databases and custom UIs (Score:5, Insightful)
Hence corporations all having relational databases with custom GUI applications. Spreadsheets are most useful for tabular data, which of course works well in relational database tables. While spreadsheets are great at free-form manipulation and "playing" with the data, it's the custom apps that are required to sqeeze that data into the corporation's customs workflows. For at least 20 years what corporations have been doing is creating the custom apps and having them export to more freeform data models like spreadsheets as needed. This seems to work pretty well.
But "supercharging" spreadsheets won't really be providing power to the people that need it. The people that most need power over large amounts of data have hundreds of people working in their IT departments.
Re:Databases and custom UIs (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd go farther. Spreadsheets exist to capture the structure of calculations. Data should as far as possible never go in them. The only unequivocal exception to this are parameters used in the calculations (e.g. "assuming the rate of inflation is i...").
In practice people do have to stage derived data in their spreadsheets, but this is dangerous and leads down the road to the major use of spreadsheets in businesses today: as an ad hoc "direct manipulation" database. This is a dreadful, hair-raising practice. Many a time I've looked at results that don't make sense, because one cell got separated from its brethren in a sort.
Re:Databases and custom UIs (Score:3, Interesting)
I was "upgraded" to excel 2003 this summer, which caused such a decrease in my productivity.
One new "feature" is that the ever ubiquitous ctrl-A, which every other app, and all older versions of Excel used to "select ALL", no longer selects ALL. Excel 2003 now tries to look at the group of cells you're currently sitting in, and selects what it thinks is a convenient group. The problem is, if there's a gap in a column, it won't reach across all of
Re:Databases and custom UIs (Score:2)
Re:Databases and custom UIs (Score:2)
Ctrl-S requires and ackward attack with the pinky.
The thing it, wouldn't it be irritating if in a new versin of Excel they change "ctrl-S" from "save" to "exit without saving" - and didn't bother to tell anyone.
Their unadvertised change of ctrl-A lost me just as much work - and it can't have been an accident. The new action of ctrl-A had to have been specifically programmed. They're good at po
Usability versus good design? (Score:3, Interesting)
I see your point -- there are these things called "data"bases for storing data, which have a lot of features for keeping the data safer and more meaningful than it would be in a spreadsheet.
On the other hand, one of the stories about usability engineering was that Microsoft discovered that customers were using Excel to store lists of things, so they added features to speed up creating and sorting
Re:Usability versus good design? (Score:2)
Only in that they didn't follow through with it. What this really means is that something like Access should be included with Excel by default. Microsoft wants to avoid doing this, as Access is an upgrade product (they sell office both with and without Access). The net result is that people use Excel to store data, since it requires some minimal ability to do that.
Proper design (rather than the after the fact fix that they
Re:Databases and custom UIs (Score:2)
And another oddball use of spreadsheets [agdconsulting.ca] that will curl most people's short hairs.
-AD
that's the point! (Score:5, Interesting)
Your last sentence summed it up very well: companies presently pay a LOT of people simply to move data from app to app. A collaborative spreadsheet could change workflows in significant ways that we, having never before used such an app, cannot readily predict.
I think it's a bloody fantastic idea, and so simple and obvious it seems odd to think such an app doesn't yet exist.
Re:that's the point! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:that's the point! (Score:3, Insightful)
And a podcast is just a RSS based distribution of sound and video media. But it is a good implementation and use of RSS, and a WikiCalc would be a great use of wiki.
Some of the best most obvious innovations seem rediculously obvious in hindsight, but that doesn't detract from their greatness (in fact, you could just say they were elegant [retrologic.com])
It has been done before. (Score:2)
It *has* been done before and it *does* exist, in fact there are loads of them... All you have to do is look.
WikiCalc (Score:5, Funny)
Or... (Score:2)
Calco Anarchy?
Re:Should have named it (Score:2)
Total Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Share the workbook and multiple people can edit at the same time. I do this daily and have been using this feature for quite some time. Changes are highlighted w/notes on who made what change whenever you save. I haven't played "e-mail volleyball" regarding spreadsheets.
-Charles
Re:Total Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
-Charles
TurboDbAdmin? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://turboajax.com/turbodbadmin.html [turboajax.com]
in other words, "ajax-based web spreadsheet that uses a databse for backend datastore"
Great idea - it effectively could kill excel for always-connected corporate environments where people are constantly fighting with different spreadsheet revisions and 2nd hand data.
Give users the interface they know and mostly seem to love. No stupid ODBC drivers necessary. Works in any modern browser. Give the company accurate data in a real database. Win-Win.
Re:Total Bullshit (Score:1)
Re:Total Bullshit (Score:2)
And what about other web clients, like PDAs? Net cafes kiosks?
Mod Parent UP! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mod Parent UP! (Score:2)
Not.
One company I was at (several hundred very-distributed people) paid $45000 to put in a conference call server. It paid for itself in a few months, we'd gotten so addicted to conference calls without paying attention to the per-line per-minute costs. Even WITH the conference server and a VOIP or similar way of making intra-corporate calls insanely cheap, there's still a per-office broadband cost to shuttling a gig per day of voice data around, especially when you're talki
Cluestick... (Score:2)
I change a field and hit excel's save icon, you hit refresh and we're both on the same page again.
I won't hold my breath. And THAT is the generic case, not some in-LAN trusted share. A wiki does it. Web apps, as I mentioned and you ignored, have the advantage of platform/client being free and an
Re:Total Bullshit (Score:2, Interesting)
Shared workbooks in Excel are very good for specific instances: they work fine, so longs as the datasets aren't huge, everyone knows when they're going to synchronise/update, nobody, but nobody get's a connection problem, Excel doesn't crash and nobody's box goes down. And if one of those happens mid-save, your spreadsheet could be toast.
Excel has many features that allow it to be used as a sort of database - I've even seen heavily 'locked down' workbooks relying on enormous quantities of VBA code workin
Re:Total Bullshit (Score:2)
Re:Total Bullshit (Score:2)
In practice, offices don't do that. It'll be easier for the PHB to have it explained that you can do this in a browser than how to turn on sharing.
Re:Total Bullshit (Score:2)
Uh, no. Tools --> Share Workbook.
And PHBs may not know much, but I guarantee you they grasp the basics of at least PowerPoint and Excel, with the Outlook Calendar not far behind.
In practice, most offices that use spreadsheets at all do just that. They put the sheet on a shared drive that is mapped on boot and access it thru a link in their "My Documents" or
Don't discount it... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's dead if it doesn't do Excel macros (Score:2)
Re:Don't discount it... (Score:2)
Would it be nice for a more generic app to save on software development? Of course. But I can't imagine a magical tool that easily fits in without needing massive customization.
I don't even understand what that means (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I don't even understand what that means (Score:2)
At home, my wife and myself already use a wiki to keep track of things to do, current events, the progress of our baby, etc.
A wiki coupled with a spreadsheet would bring us:
- An easier way to share tabular content or to format content in tabular form (file listings, tasks, events),
- An easier way to balance accounts. Well, easier than GNUCash anyway
- A collaborative framework to implement useful computations. If you consider formulas as functions, you have an
Re:I don't even understand what that means (Score:2, Interesting)
In my small business, I have to send my accountant monthly spreadsheets of the bank activity, what invoices I've sent, and what expenses I've claimed. Pretty simple stuff.
Now if I have two people doing that, we can both be adding stuff in, and our accountant gets to see it as it happens.
Granted, this is possible with Excel sharing, or SharePoint, but the point here being that (a) it's simple and (b) is web based and (c) it doesn't require all of us to share a fileserver and (d) it's ope
Re:I don't even understand what that means (Score:2)
JotSpot Tracker? (Score:1, Interesting)
Great, he's handing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Maturity of alternatives (Score:2)
This appears to be a main point to me. Marketing and user adoption. The article refers to various existing alternatives: honestly, I don't care that much about having 5 collabo-spreadsheet alternatives, I just want one that will do what I want bugless with plenty of features. Take OpenOffice sp
Uh, sharepoint? (Score:5, Informative)
Excel Services (Score:2)
see http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2005/11/08/49
Re:Excel Services (Score:2)
Re:Excel Services (Score:3, Informative)
Umm... NO, read the artical linked. Read the snpped section below and note how it specificly says "No ActiveX".
So what happened, exactly, to get the spreadsheet in the browser? Behind the scenes, Excel Services opened the file the sales analyst saved to SharePoint, refreshed any external data in the spreadsheet, calculated any formulas, and rendered the results in the browser. Specifically, Exce
Re:Uh, sharepoint? (Score:2)
The biggest problem is that it is virtually impossible to navigate the areas. For word documents you get a semi-sharing system. It's sort of what you'd get if you put a document in version control--the merge isn't good, but it's possible.
However, as far as I can tell, the Excel portion is horrific. There is really no decent merge, it's no better than putting it in version control.
If I'm wrong about it, would you please refer me to a summary
Careful where you tread... (Score:5, Funny)
MediaWiki already has semi-protection (Score:1)
The possibility of vandalism is why most publicly visible wiki spreadsheets would be run in semi-protected mode [wikipedia.org], where only logged-in users can edit. Many wikis already use semi-protection as the default for most or all pages.
Disconcerning (Score:2)
-Charles
Re:Disconcerning (Score:2)
http://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/ind
Re:Disconcerning (Score:1)
Re:Disconcerning (Score:2)
Quoth the article: "Bricklin's answer is to make it possible for anyone using WikiCalc to enter data and for anyone else to edit that data and have those edits be reflected on everyone's computers instantaneously."
I updates come across to my screen when someone else merges, then that is what I
Database? (Score:2)
Re:Database? (Score:2)
While I admit that an AJAX front-end giving the look and feel of a spreadsheet that allows large-scale collaboration for companies is a cool concept, now it will allow for any idiot to change those crucial forecasting numbers for the 4th quarter, which is kind of from a business standpoint, even if it is internal only.
Re:Database? (Score:2)
Riiiight... because "any idiot" is the policy Wikipedia has chosen, therefore anything with "wiki" in its name must also adopt the same policy!
See if you can try to separate the technology from the policy. It's fun!
(And if this hasn't beat some sense into you, then I'll spell it out plainly -- wiki technology is widely used in restricted environments, usernames and passwords, people with varying levels of acc
Re:Database? (Score:2)
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/ 29/1732238 [slashdot.org]
Even with usernames/audit trails, the only difference is the "idiot" is identifiable. I'm not condemning Wiki, in fact as far as knowledge bases are concerned, it is incredibly powerful as a starting point of research, and for the most part fairly accurate. But erronious information does make its way into Wiki, and as the above artcles point out, people with an agenda of their own can ma
Re:Database? (Score:1)
However, to a CSR, a spreadsheet is life. Unfortunately, the RDBMS isn't what a CSR is ready to use. CSRs want auto-filter, column-rearranging, sorting, etc. And they don't want to w
This is an Awesome Idea!! (Score:2)
However, for plenty of individuals and personal buisnesses this seems like a great idea. All the time there are common
That Will Teach Me to Post So Fast (Score:2)
Hopefully someone will come along and do what I suggested anyway.
WikiPoop (Score:3, Funny)
Re:WikiPoop (Score:2, Funny)
Re:WikiPoop (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Num Sum (Score:1)
Num Sum [numsum.com]
Sounds like... (Score:3, Informative)
Sudoku! (Score:1)
Origin labs (Score:1)
And in other late breaking news ... (Score:1)
Wonderful... (Score:2)
Revision Tracking with multiple users in Excel (Score:4, Informative)
Select the Allow changes by more than one user at the same time check box.
Click the Advanced tab.
Under Track changes, click Keep change history for, and in the Days box, type the number of days of change history (change history: In a shared workbook, information that is maintained about changes made in past editing sessions. The information includes the name of the person who made each change, when the change was made, and what data was changed.) that you want to keep.
Be sure to enter a large-enough number of days because Microsoft Excel permanently erases any change history older than this number of days.
Click OK, and if prompted to save the file, click OK.
easy enough. Straght from TFM
Curse of dependencies (Score:3, Insightful)
In contrast, the parts of a spreadsheet have strict dependencies that can span the spreadsheet and affect correctness in subtle ways. For example, if one person adds a row in one section, how should formulas in a different section react (do range references to the row above expand to encompass the new row or do range references to the row below expand or neither?). "Trace dependencies" functions can help but only if each editor recognizes that the scope of their edits is potentially unbounded.
The point is that it's harder to allow simultaneous independent edits because the internals of a spreasheet don't have independence.
Just what I need... (Score:2)
the mire of shared documents (Score:1)
Wiki (Score:4, Funny)
existing browser-based spreadsheets? (Score:1)
Next up: Wordstar (Score:4, Funny)
Oh how I love all the recent computing innovation!
Time to start registering domain names! (Score:3, Funny)
Let's see: WikiWord and WikiPoint and WikiPencil and WikiDraw and WikiPaint and WikiShop and WikiPage and WikiWeaver and.......
Bricklin has screenshots on his blog (Score:5, Informative)
This has huge potential (Score:2)
VisiCalc and copyright (Score:2)
Copyright law is so broken.
Weird (Score:2)
awful (Score:2)
There have been a number of new takes on the spreadsheet since VisiCalc, permitting manipulation of tabular data but in a more intuitive way than formulas involving row and column references. Unfortunately, Microsoft Excel killed all that with its mediocre imitation of the original VisiCalc.
I hope that web-based spreadsheets will happen. I als
VisiCalc (Score:2)
Re:Cool (Score:1)
Internal Audiance (Score:2)