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Title Copy-paste tracking: Fixing spreadsheets without breaking them
Authors Felienne Hermans & Tijs van der Storm
Year 2015
Type Proceedings
Publication International Conference on Live Coding
Series July
Abstract

Spreadsheets are the most popular live programming environments, but they are also notoriously fault-prone. One reason for this is that users actively rely on copy-paste to make up for the lack of abstraction mechanisms. Adding abstraction however, introduces indirection and thus cognitive distance.

In this paper we propose an alternative: copy-paste tracking. Tracking copies that spreadsheet users make, allows them to directly edit copy-pasted formulas, but instead of changing only a single instance, the changes will be propagated to all formulas copied from the same source.

As a result, spreadsheet users will enjoy the benefits of abstraction without its drawbacks.

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Sample
Copy-paste tracking
Copy-paste tracking
We propose XanaSheet, a spreadsheet system that employs origin tracking techniques to maintain a live connection between source and destination of copy-paste actions. Whenever a copied formula is edited, the modifications are transformed and replayed on the original and all other copies.