[jacques_chester]

This triggered some associations for me.

Strongest was Cells[0], a library for Common Lisp CLOS. The earliest reference I can find is 2002[1], making it over 20 years old.

Second is incremental view maintenance systems like Feldera[2] or Materialize[3]. These use sophisticated theories (z-sets and differential dataflow) to apply efficient updates over sets of data, which generalizes the case of single variables.

The third thing I'm reminded of is Modelica[4], a language where variables are connected by relations (in the mathematical sense). So while A = B + C can update A on when B or C change, you also can update just A and B, then find out what C must have become.

[0] https://cells.common-lisp.dev

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20021216222614/http://www.tilton...

[2] https://www.feldera.com

[3] https://materialize.com

[4] https://modelica.org

[mananaysiempre]

> Strongest was Cells[0], a library for Common Lisp CLOS. The earliest reference I can find is 2002[1], making it over 20 years old.

How about Microsoft DirectAnimation[1] from 1998, literally designed under the direction of Conal Elliott? Serious question, for what it’s worth, I’ve always wondered if all discussions of this thing are lost to time or if nobody cared for it to begin with.

[1] http://sistemas.afgcoahuila.gob.mx/software/Visual%20Basic%2...

[PaulHoule]

... or Visicalc, TK/Solver, etc.

I've always been baffled that people think spreadsheets are like dataframes when the really interesting thing has always been you can write formulas that refer to each other and the engine figures out the updating. Most of the times I've written a spreadsheet I haven't used the grid as a grid but just a place I can write some labels, some input fields and formulas.