Spreadsheets are used in professional business con- texts to make decisions based on collected data. Usually, these spreadsheets are developed by end users in an ad-hoc way. Thus, the business logic of a concrete spreadsheet is not explicit to end users, making its correctness hard to assess and users have to trust.
We present an approach where structure and computational behavior of a spreadsheet are specified by a model with a process- like notation based on pre-defined functional spreadsheet services with typed interfaces. This enables a consistent construction process of a spreadsheet that comprises defining its structure and computational behavior as well as filling it with data and executing the defined computational behavior. Thus, concrete spreadsheets are equipped with a specification of their con- struction process. This supports their understanding and correct usage, even in case of legacy spreadsheets.
The approach has been developed in cooperation with an industrial partner.
IEEE Computer Society Press
Jorge Mendes,
Jácome Cunha, Francisco Duarte,
Gregor Engels,
João Alexandre Saraiva,
Stefan Sauer
