Toward a logical/physical theory of spreadsheet modeling

In spite of the increasing sophistication and power of commercial spreadsheet packages, we still lack a formal theory or a methodology to support the construction and maintenance of spreadsheet models. Using a dual logical/physical perspective, we identify four principal components that characterize any spread sheet model: schema, data, editorial, and binding. We present a factoring algorithm for identifying and extracting these components from conventional spreadsheets with minimal user intervention, and a synthesis algorithm that assists users in the construction of executable spreadsheets from reusable model components.