write good code that can be reviewed and maintained
This is an interesting thing to think about. I just opened up a Google spreadsheet that I created in 2009 to see if I would be able to understand and update it if necessary. I managed to make a change and see some new results in under a minute.
The time to get back up to speed inside a long-lost spreadsheet is way faster than going back to a program you wrote 7 years ago. Even in complex spreadsheets, it is very easy to follow the flow of data by just clicking inside a cell to see how it was computed.
Incremental improvements are also typically easier on a spreadsheet than in a standard programming language. Part of it is because each cell or column is quite modular and I don't have to worry about extra state that isn't specified in that cell's formula.
Comments
This is an interesting thing to think about. I just opened up a Google spreadsheet that I created in 2009 to see if I would be able to understand and update it if necessary. I managed to make a change and see some new results in under a minute.
The time to get back up to speed inside a long-lost spreadsheet is way faster than going back to a program you wrote 7 years ago. Even in complex spreadsheets, it is very easy to follow the flow of data by just clicking inside a cell to see how it was computed.
Incremental improvements are also typically easier on a spreadsheet than in a standard programming language. Part of it is because each cell or column is quite modular and I don't have to worry about extra state that isn't specified in that cell's formula.