[Jprogramming] J embedded in Excel

[Tom Arneson]

I use both Excel and J. I prefer J, but my students learn and understand
Excel faster than J. I would use the average function in Excel
,=AVERAGE(A1:A50), rather than trying to get Excel to execute J sentence +/
% # on the same range.


-----Original Message-----
From: programming-bounces at jsoftware.com
[mailto:programming-bounces at jsoftware.com] On Behalf Of Graham Parkhouse
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 18:14
To: programming at jsoftware.com
Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] J embedded in Excel

I've got hold of 'Excel 2007 VBA Macro Programming' by Richard Shepherd. It
has one chapter on API calls but is silent on what I'm wishing to achieve.
It hardly touches on arrays - I have found Len() for character string length
but can't find the equivalent of $ for numeric strings, so have failed to
write the function +/ % # in VBA. Bad day's work considering it takes about
5s in J.

Am I wasting my time? Engineers have been using Excel for their calculations
for years and it is good for charts and illustrations which is why I am
exploring embedding J routines into it. But what about writing calculations
in html or xml? Could I provide an .ijs file with a source file and using
things like grid allow engineers to put in their own data and edit the text?
Both Excel and Mathcad are pretty old and may have had their day: engineers
have made considerable use of them, but many calculations are still hand
written. Mathematica is another possibility.

Graham

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