Spreadsheets that use a functional-programming language

Question

I'd like to know if there exists a spreadsheet application which uses an existing functional-programming language to define functions.

I've already heard about Resolver One which uses python, but I'm more interested in anything which uses a purely functional language like Haskell.

Thanks

Answer 1

Python can also be used as a macro language in OpenOffice. Not sure about Haskell.

Answer 2

If you count JavaScript as a functional programming language you can use Google Web Scripts for Google Spreadsheets :)

Answer 3

There's Scheme In A Grid (http://siag.nu/siag/), but it's looking kind of out of date.

There's also Haxcel (http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/projects/Haxcel/), which was a thesis project.

If you want to do functional programming in a spreadsheet the best practical choice is probably Resolver One, as you've already noted. (I would say "functional programming" in this context means first-class functions that work with other spreadsheet functions and the sheet itself - i.e. you could write a function that returns a function, call it and have the result go in a cell for yet other cells to call, etc. I don't know if OpenOffice and Google Docs will do that.)

A colleague and I have been working on a little project to do this within Excel, using a syntax very close to Excel formulas. I described it briefly in a comment on Roy MacLeans's VBA Blog:

http://roymacleanvba.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/domain-specific-languages-%e2%80%93-part-2/#comment-130

It's changed some since I posted that, but if you want to call our very-minimal syntax a "language", it's certainly "pure". (And I'm still planning to release it to the vast universe of FP-implemented-in-VBA enthusiasts, but stuff keeps coming up...)