What makes a spreadsheet a spreadsheet?
What makes a spreadsheet a spreadsheet, and not a word document or a database or a calculator? What is the most basic and defining feature of a spreadsheet?
Yes, it is this feature of chaining formulas. A formula refers to a cell that itself may be another formula.
"The key feature of spreadsheets is the ability for a formula to refer to the contents of other cells, which may in turn be the result of a formula."
"The ability to chain formulas together is what gives a spreadsheet its power."
Spreadsheet users could design complex chains of formula. However, once built, there is no easy way to see the chains of formula. That is not a good situation. Imagine a city that has built a network of roads but has no map of the roads.
This is where "trace precedent" and "trace dependent" come in. If you are at one point of the chain, you can look up by tracing precedents and look down by tracing dependents. That is not a very good map, but it is still better than not having a map.
With some macro programming, we can get good maps of any region of a spreadsheet.
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