Workbooks.jl

Spreadsheets with the power of Julia

Installation

julia> Pkg.add("Workbooks")

Introduction

This package has the following aims:

1. Capture fundamental spreadsheet functionality

   • Variables are represented by Cells; there are no other/global variables
   • A Cell is defined by its formula, potentially calling functions that refer to other Cells
   • Updating a Cell causes its dependents to update (if the graph of references contains no cycles!)
   • A Workbook is a self-contained collection of Sheets

2. Let the full power of Julia be used

   • Cells can have any value of any type, including any Number, an Array or a Struct
   • Any function can be called in a Cell's formula
   • The Workbook comes with a Project.toml file, and reads an include.jl file if present
   • Standard tooling can add plotting, benchmarking, and other analysis

3. Other features

   • Simple file format: zipped collection of sheets + config file
   • Interoperability through CSV (and, hopefully one day, a subset of Excel)
   • Ability to use Julia packages for graphs and anything else

Related projects and motivation

• VisiCalc "was the first piece of software that was so popular that it drove people to buy computers just to run it"
• Project Jupyter -- notebooks are amazing. Workbooks are a different, complementary point on the spectrum of tools.
• What can a technologist do about climate change? A personal view. Tools for scientists & engineers

Related packages

• XLSX.jl