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Although spreadsheet programs are used for small "scratchpad" applications, they are also used to develop many large applications. In recent years, we have learned a good deal about the errors that people make when they develop spreadsheets. In general, errors seem to occur in a few percent of all cells, meaning that for large spreadsheets, the issue is how many errors there are, not whether an error exists. These error rates, although troubling, are in line with those in programming and other human cognitive domains. In programming, we have learned to follow strict development disciplines to eliminate most errors. Surveys of spreadsheet developers indicate that spreadsheet creation, in contrast, is informal, and few organizations have comprehensive policies for spreadsheet development. Although prescriptive articles have focused on such disciplines as modularization and having assumptions sections, these may be far less important than other innovations, especially cell-by-cell code inspection after the development phase.
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... End-user programming, such as formulas in spreadsheets, has been extremely error-prone. For example, Panko [42] found there is a high probability of error aecting the bottom lines of any substantial spreadsheet. Despite the prevalence of consequential errors, it has been hard to get end users to write tests. ...
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... It is well-understood that spreadsheets are indispensable to business (e.g., Croll 2007, Grossman, Mehrotra, andÖzlük 2007), but can also be a source of risk and costly errors (e.g., EuSpRIG 2023, Panko 1998, but also Powell, Baker, and Lawson 2008a, 2008b, 2009a, 2009b. Researchers and practitioners have long been working on articulating standards and practices to reduce risk and error, and also to increase the productivity of spreadsheet programmers, and the effectiveness of spreadsheet users in organizations. ...
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The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
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