Spreadsheets are Code: An Overview of Software Engineering Approaches applied to Spreadsheets

Felienne Hermans, Bas Jansen, Sohon Roy, Efthimia Aivaloglou, Alaaeddin Swidan, David Hoepelman

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeConference contributionScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Spreadsheets can be considered to be the world's most successful end-user programming language. In fact, one could say spreadsheets are programs. This paper starts with a comparison of spreadsheets to software: spreadsheets are similar in terms of applications domains, expressive power and maintainability problems. We then reflect upon what makes spreadsheets successful: liveness, directness and an easy deployment environment seem contribute largely to their success. Being a programming language, several techniques from software engineering can be applied to spreadsheets. We present an overview of such research directions, including spreadsheet testing, reverse engineering, smell detection, clone detection and refactoring. Finally, open challenges and future plans for the domain of spreadsheet software engineering are presented.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2016 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering, SANER 2016
EditorsA. Jiu
Place of PublicationPiscataway, NJ
PublisherIEEE
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-5090-1855-0
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2016
EventSANER 2016: 23rd IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering - Osaka, Japan
Duration: 14 Mar 201618 Mar 2016

Conference

ConferenceSANER 2016
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityOsaka
Period14/03/1618/03/16

Keywords

  • Software
  • Programming profession
  • Testing
  • Documentation
  • Software engineering
  • Companies

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