Logical spreadsheets

Quotes from Kassoff and Valente (2007) An introduction to logical spreadsheets

Logical spreadsheets are an extension to traditional spreadsheets.

Traditional spreadsheets can do mathematical computations, along with simple Boolean functions and conditionals. Logical spreadsheets have more use cases, examples by Kassoff and Valente: “performing symbolic what-if analyses, and transforming data from one representation to another. […] data entry and validation, enterprise management, and constraint-solving.”

Kassoff and Valente list some benefits of logical spreadsheets:

  • reduce errors in spreadsheet design (by checking errors or limiting the ways in which users make mistakes);
  • make it easier to perform some common spreadsheet tasks (e.g. specifiy certain constraints or queries);
  • allow users to specify what they intend more declaratively;
  • provide a different/complementary abstraction;
  • make it easier to perform certain tasks (e.g. query across tables);
  • make it easier to express/use complex (business) rules, and make them more readable and main- tainable;
  • use logic to debug and reason about spreadsheet contents;
  • add more powerful, expressive modeling capabilities through logic expressions;
  • additional new reasoning capabilities (e.g. constraint reasoning);
  • help users build models in spreadsheets.

TODO: read more of the paper, list modern applications

Sounds a bit similar to DMN extension: Constraint tables#?

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