You can already do this.

I have started working on an API for Google Spreadsheets. It has an EditCells(row, col, value) function that you can use to remotely modify a cell. You can see more on my blog at http://geekswithblogs.net/lance/archive/2006/06/08/GoogleSpreadsheetsAPI.aspx.

[tags]google, google spreadsheets, api[/tags]

Speaking strickly from an internal MIS organization perspective, addressable cells in an online spreadsheet would be significant opportunity for application development - a variation, if you will, on the wisdom of masses theme pervasive in Web 2.0. However, I would be concerned about the lack of a structured application development environment. Precision and accuracy are requirements in business processes. Efforts would have to be made to ensure that applications that are literally spread accross several websites were accurate, otherwise this would take the meaning of “spreadware” to a whole new level. Additionally, long term support of such an environment may be more expensive than the traditional. Presently, I am looking for ways in which my organiation could become less dependent on the isolated spreadsheet. Linking them together would not necessarily provide the kind of assurance for accuracy necessary for a sound data-driven decision making environment for which we strive. Those cautions aside, it would nonetheless be an interesting concept that should be explored and maybe even deployed, with some restraint.

[tags]addressable url, spreadware, spreadsheets, google, google spreadsheets[/tags]

[...] In response to Casey’s post regarding URL addressable cells in spreadsheets, I came across numbler today which appears to have a rest api (and xml) that supports PUT, Get and Delete for cells and ranges. Will be interesting to see what kind of things can be made with this. [...]

EditGrid has an official API at http://labs.editgrid.com

It uses SOAP + WSDL, which should make writing clients easy in languages that support these technologies. (We may release a REST version if requested.)

Currently we have most simple features implemented, and you can get/set cell values, or even a range of cell values. Create new sheets/workbooks etc.

Try it out!

I’ve thought about this concept at some length. I think it could have some profound implications.

I envision a globally interconnected “number-web” of spreadsheets which are continually communicating with each other and updating their status.

In this world, every spreadsheet computation is based on the results of some other SS computation. So, if the profitability of my company is related to the inflation rate in China and the Euro-Dollar exchange rate, I’ll hook up my spreadsheet to a stream which provides those numbers. Those numbers in turn can be generated by other SpreadSheets employing the same principles. Furthermore, I’ll *publish* the data from my SpreadSheet to the world, and so my stockholders (for example) will also have continually updated data about their financial positions. In theory, this chain of publishing calculations based on other calculations could go on ad infinitum.

In practice, this could cause problems, as Ken pointed out. In particular, what happens if there are cyclical spreadsheet dependencies? It might make sense to try to prohibit this somehow. But situations like this exist in the real world - there’s no reason why Company A and Company B can’t both own shares of each other’s stock. So I think a more reasonable approach would be to allow cyclical dependencies. In this case there would need to be a delay mechanism. Eg, an SS does not automatically recalculate itself every time it gets a request, but rather only every hour or so.

Another issue is: what if there’s a bug? If some guy in the Czech republic makes a divide by zero error and publishes a profit (or loss) of $10 trillion, you wouldn’t want this error to disrupt calculations through the entire world.

Despite these issues I think it’s a powerful idea.

[tags] addressable url, google, google spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadware[/tags]

I think cells, rows, columns, and even sheets qualify as resources as defined by REST. Using the HTTP POST/GET/PUT/DELETE methods for CRUD operations makes the network exchanges simple enough to do with telnet. I’ve built a small app which implements this. This blog post demonstrates the input & output:

http://www.nearinfinity.com/blogs/page/seths?entry=rest_network_api_for_an1

I think &range=A1 will work for you….

Hello!
I think this try.