Authors
Peter Bartholomew
Abstract
Spreadsheets offer a supremely successful democratisation platform, placing the manipulation and presentation of numbers within the grasp of users that have little or no mathematical expertise or IT experience.
What appears to be almost completely lacking within a 'normal' solution built using Excel default settings is the deployment of any structure that extends beyond a single-cell formula. The structural elements that allow conventional code to scale without escalating errors appear to be absent.
This paper considers the use of controversial or lesser-used techniques to create a coherent solution strategy in which the problem is solved by a sequence of formulas resembling the steps of a programmed language.
Sample
In our example, the Debt Balance as being calculated using the formula: {= IF( initialise.loan?, loan.amount, ←debt.balance + interest.expense - debt.service )} where the symbol "←" (back arrow) is used to indicate the previous period.
Publication
2016, EuSpRIG
Full article
A structured approach to the development of solutions in Excel
