Spread sheet // cells -> Rust structs, formulas -> Rust functions

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  1. I acknowledge this is insane and can only work for a subset of Rust programs. However, for the subset of Rust programs this can work for, it'll be interesting.

  2. Imagine we start with MS Excel, except:

  • instead of storing numbers in Cells, we can store arbitrary Rust structs
  • for formulas, instead of whatever Excel is using, we use arbitrary Rust functions

  1. There's lots of details (reloading, what happens when Struct is redefined, etc ...) with weird edge cases.

  2. However, what is the closest we currently have to this experience?

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Sounds like Demo / Observable / Observable

It's in JS, but I don't see how Rust would make that better overall. Having everything as an expression would be nice, but needing everything in Rc<RefCell<>> wouldn't.

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Excel is a form of dataflow computation (auto updating based on dependencies), so maybe something like GitHub - TimelyDataflow/timely-dataflow: A modular implementation of timely dataflow in Rust is relevant.

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