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From: "James Albert Larson" <larso171@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Q: Microsoft Excel 5 spreadsheet on internet
Message-ID: <23893.larso171@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
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Organization: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 08:12:14 GMT
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Hi all,

I originate from the DOS / Windows based IBM-PC world.  I'm fairly new to 
the internet and internet culture.

It seems that the programming language of the internet, at least for 
scientific / technical, is C, and also C++, Lisp, Fortran.  And I wouldn't 
want it any other way.  However, for a variety of reasons, I've developed 
an application using Excel 5.  Its heavily documented and all that, and 
free, and would be (or could be with a little more work?) of high value to 
a small segment of people (it involves a combinatorial explosion 
optimization problem for scheduling electric utility generators, aka the 
unit commitment problem).  (Currently, it uses traditional dynamic 
programming techniques, but I'm working on a GA version of it).

Anyway, my question is, would an Excel 5 spreadsheet be appreciated by 
the internet community?  My thinking is that practically every PC and 
Macintosh in the business world has a spreadsheet on it, and more and more 
that spreadsheet is Excel (on both PC's and Macintoshes).  Particularly 
among scientific / engineering types.  And while the university world is 
mostly Unix based, practically every professor and academic researcher 
has a PC or Macintosh, or very easy access to one.   

I could rewrite it in C, but it would be a tremendous job to produce the 
kind of user interface that comes built-in with Excel.  And the user 
interface is important for this application, particularly since its 
heavily tutorial in nature.  Any user interface that I wrote in C that was 
half-way decent would probably be highly non-portable anyway.  (And since 
the darn thing is free, there's no way I'm going to spend hundreds of hours 
turning it into a C program.  And darn it, I started out with a 
Mathematica version of it, but hardly anyone I know has or knows any 
Mathematica, but everyone seems to be familiar with spreadsheets, and many 
of those know Excel).

Could someone clue me in on what standards, customs, understandings, 
practices, religious conflicts, whatever, there is about uploading 
applications in non-traditional 4GL languages like Excel?   

Its my intent to contact some academic researchers that I know in this unit 
commitment area.  One in particular, for example, has a directory and 
papers accessible by WWW.   What makes most sense to me is to ask if I 
could upload my application to his directory.  This will involve some work 
on his part, including listing it in his directory, creating a link to it 
from his home page, or whatever.  I don't know if this would be an 
"outrageous" request on my part, or if this is the way these kinds of 
things are done.  

I much appreciate any comments or ideas.

Thanks
Jim Larson

