why is mathematica so bad at being a spreadsheet? | Lobsters
a few weeks ago, i gained a need for something roughly spreadsheet-shaped. very tiny—1e4 or 1e5 rows, if that. i decided my options were:
i have never used mathematica before in any serious capacity (nor anything else in ‘notebook’ form factor; my impression is that the rest are all crappy mathematica knockoffs), but i have vaguely good impressions from afar. so i downloaded it and played around a bit. all in all my impressions were uniformly extremely positive, except for one thing that shocks, astonishes, and flabbergasts me. it completely fails at the core competency of a spreadsheet. the displayed state is incoherent, so saving and reloading a notebook can change the displayed state. i experimented with Dynamic, but was unable to get it to work consistently (i think this may have been because of some interactions with Format?). everything feels very fragile and uncertain, and i don’t feel like i can be secure in using mathematica for this. it’s as if a notebook is meant to only be an artifact for display, not something to be developed and changed over time
is there something i am missing? some checkbox i can tick to get a sensible mode? if so, tell me and i’ll happily tick and go on my merry way. but i doubt it. my question is: why?? i have no doubt that being properly reactive would be less useful for research mathematicians or college students doing integrals, who are maybe the primary target market, but still i think my needs are representative of a reasonable contingent. there are no technical hurdles in principle (i understand some corners of mathematica can do unrestricted side effects, but it should be no problem to have a mode which outlaws those). is it a matter of principle? borked incentive structures? something else? help me to understand…
