Dear Bennett, This is an interesting area of work, and I encourage you in your research.
You will certainly find the work of Martin Erwig, Robin Abraham, and Margaret Burnett, along with other colleagues of theirs at Oregon State University, relevant to your ideas. I would hope that some of them read this list and will respond, otherwise I recommend that you get in touch with them directly. Alan > Dear All, > > I am Bennett Kankuzi, an MSc in Computer Science student at the > University of Botswana. I am new to this list. > > I am working on some research topic in spreadsheets. One of the basic > questions in this research is on the idea of goals in spreadsheets. > Since a spreadsheet is a program, it has to have high-level goals > which are implemented by plans as in procedural programming. Another > question that comes to mind is: how can one identify high-level goals > in a created spreadsheet? In attempting to answer this question, I am > proposing that sink cells (output cells) are representing high-level > goals of the spreadsheet program. (A sink cell can be defined as a > formula cell without any dependent cells yet it has precedent cells. > An input cell will only have dependent cells. Computational cells have > precedent and dependent cells since they are intermediary > computations) > > Why can sink cells represent goals ? Goals are what the user wants to > achieve. In other words, these are the primary results the user wants > to see. Output cells or sink cells contain these results otherwise > they could be used as part another formula (intermediary computation) > and therefore they could have dependent cells. > > Is my proposal alright? Or do you know of any research papers on goals > and plans in spreadsheets that could help answer my question? > > Many thanks in advance for your time. > > Regards, > > Bennett > -- > Blog: http://bkankuzi.blogspot.com > Photo Collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/page2/ > Google Talk: bfkankuzi > VoipCheap: bkankuzi > Skype: bfkankuzi > Mobile: +267 72 938 886 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) > Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss > Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce > PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ > -- Alan Blackwell Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/afb21/ Phone: +44 (0) 1223 334418 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
