Slashdot Mirror
Spreadsheets for Scientific Computing?
redcliffe asks: "Sometimes it's much easier to create a spreadsheet to do some mathematical calculations for physics than to create a whole new program to do the calculations. It's also handy to be able to easily change one figure and have all your other calculations update. But there a certain types of calculations that normal spreadsheet apps like KSpread don't seem to handle well. Anyone know of a spreadsheet or something similiar designed for scientific computing? I've seen GNU Octave, but that's almost like writing a whole program, and without a GUI it's hard to learn quickly."
I usually run into the problem where spreadsheet software just isn't powerful enough to handle the amount of data I want. But, the problem ends up being too time consuming to write a whole Access or some other db for. The result is Excel files several MB long.
Someone hates these cans.
Spreadsheets are usefull, yes, but if you're trying to do something your spreadsheet can't handle, chances are you should probably not be using it.
I suggest you use a program like Mathmatica, or program in Fortran or similar "easy" programming language. Spreadsheets are really only usefull in physics for data collection and mining on a small scale.
This isn't going to be of any help, but I have a few questions.
I'm sure there are things which spreadsheets can't handle well. Off the type of my head I can think of derivatives, integration, and solving simultaneous equations. But I'm wondering what in particular you've found spreadsheets unable to do.
Further, you didn't mention a platform on which you are operating. I assume KDE running on Linux, since you mentioned KSolve. Are your restricting your search to this platform?
And, dare I ask, have you tried Excel to see if it provides functionality to do this built in, via macros, or via VB? Although VBA may not be great fun, it may allow you to do what you want without doing quite so far as writing a full program.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
You want a program like Origin -- a spreadsheet designed for scientific computing. While it's both very much not free and windows only, sometimes you just have to use the right tools for the job. A free or even just Un*x friendly replacement for Origin at its level of sophistication would be a very Good Thing. I'm hoping that there are other, similar software packages out there, but that's the one I'm most familiar with.
The Scientific Applications on Linux site has a few entries for spreadsheets and many more for data processing and visualization.
Ron
The NPL (UK version of NIST) tested a variety of software used for scientific purposes, some of the results are in Metromania 13.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Just use Excel. The development time is quicker and faster than building a database in Oracle or Foxpro or whatever. Just use a spreadsheet row for each row in your table and reimplement all the useful functions like SUM(), COUNT(), INSERT, WITH UPDLOCK etc in Visual Basic. If it gets corrupted just hire some cheap data entry people to type it all in again.
What could be easier?
A previous poster correctly stated that if you can't do it easily in a spreadsheet, you're probably needing another tool altogether. I would suggest using Matlab. Mathematica is nice, and so is Maple. And fortran's great if you want to push around bits, although C is used more by the engineering community.
Matlab's greatest strength is that it works magic with matricies. By using a spreadsheet, you aren't terribly far off from Matlab's strength, as I'm guessing that you've got several arrays. The matlab engine is also very robust and has nearly as many options available as fortran or C would. Can't beat that.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Consider MathCad. Back when I was doing control theory classes, the interface seemed much more intuitive. You 'wrote' a page of equations, plots, etc. and they were solved automatically. You could even write live reports. It was great for lab and homework writeups. The screenshots don't do it justice. Sadly it is not free, and is windows only.
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Most of my colleagues are Windows addicts who battle away getting Excel to handle huge data sets. I do almost all of my work in IDL and find that it works just great.
Try TK Solver. It is designed for solving simultaneous equations. I used it in college to solve some nasty problems dealing with internal combustion engine cycles. Back then it was on UNIX, but it looks like it is only Windows now.
Open source can always use programers who have an itch to scratch. Without knowing your problem I can't really say more, but it would be a good selling point for KSpread to be the only spreadsheet that can do what you need. A good way to take over from Microsoft is to do everything Excell does that people need, and a few other things that they don't do.
Other packages you named are also open source, pick on that is closed to your needs, and make it better for everyone. There are plenty of out of work programers (like me - hint hint) who would love to modify an open source program for money.
I personally use and love both Open Office Calc, and MS Excell, but that's mostly for stats and financial data, which is their strong points. However, StarOffice 5 allowed you to create functions using C or C++, I can't recall which, its been too long since I looked at it. I don't know if its in the newest version but you might want to see if that meets your needs. It looked to be pretty powerful, more so than Excel's add-in functions. I was wanting to add Black-Scholes to it as a function, but gave up and just made it a sheet. Also Maple, once your used to the odd syntax of the command line, is excellent unless your doing lots of DSP type stuff, which Matlab excelled at. I haven't used Mathmatica, but everything I've seen or heard about it has been excellent, and I would like to try it if I had anymore heavy duty math to do.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
It's not a spreadsheet and could be expanded upon, but it can do spreadsheet like things surprisingly easily without needing to export to/import from a spreadsheet, especially since you can develop your regexp and expression one match at a time (using undo to back up) then ! when everything's ready to do it all. Don't worry about not knowing lisp; if you can handle reverse Polish notation, you're ready for the bread and butter of spreadsheet type operations.
If we were ants living on a Rubik's cube, differential geometry would be a little more confusing.
It also licenses Maple (or parts thereof), so it can solve equations symbolically.
MathCAD is also the cheapest program of its kind. There are free tools, but none of them have GUIs like MathCAD, and dealing with complex mathematical formulae is one place where a GUI can make a big difference.
no one needs to remind you of brainfuck
--
fight global cooling
I am eliminating all 24 of my posts. Only 48 minutes left!
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.