Here are some features that would be nice in Excel:
1. Programmability in something other than VBA (Python?).
2. Online spreadsheets like Google.
3. Better search and replace.
4. Ability to reference tables through URLs so they could show up in blogs and in HTML.
Something like this: http://ycspreadsheets.com/joe/doc1.ss?s=1&block=a1:c10. This
should produce HTML that some javascript can replace in my blog with the table pulled
out of the spreadsheet.
5. Ability to pull and reference data dynamically from online sources. For example,
imagine a spreadsheet cell that pulled the current stock price of GOOG every time it
was viewed. And the rest of the spreadsheet would naturally update automatically.
It is already possible in Excel, but it is very poorly documented.
I have a few sheets that I use which pull from a non-ODBC URL using http. It populates a range of cells with new data automatically each time the spreadsheet is opened. (on a Mac too).
"Ability to pull and reference data dynamically from online sources. For example, imagine a spreadsheet cell that pulled the current stock price of GOOG every time it was viewed. And the rest of the spreadsheet would naturally update automatically."
Yes. This feature implemented well would create a really cool app. What would be even more interesting would a situation where several different sheets could pull data from each using a clever protocol to avoid the churning of values. Imagine different enterprises which each had online sheets describing their current production abilities and current supply needs. With a clever protocol, their production processes be semi-automatically coordinated (and remember, semi-automatic, some throttling is necessary to prevent self-referential cells from feeding back in an unhelpful way).
The issue with this is that Excel refreshes the active workbook by default after every change. Any quant or someone dealing with huge sheets of formulas learn that you can change this behavior to default to refresh via shift+F9 (I think)
That's for local changes. I think what we're talking about here is a sheet (at one URL) referencing a completely different sheet (at some other URL). The equivalent in Excel, I suppose, would be one .xls file referencing another.
#1 is possible using COM automation. You can write an app that interfaces with Excel via COM, or integrate your own functionality into Excel by developing a COM add-in.
what about being able to specify linear algebraic manipulations of part of the spread sheets, that would go a long way to make many things easier (sort of a mini matlab, but done right)
