You could call "excel" dataflow but the problem with that term is that are a dozen distinct models that can be called "dataflow". Similar to why "Google Cloud Dataflow" is a bad product name. That's also dataflow but the term is so general that it's not useful.
For example, in Excel, derived cells are recomputed when their sources change. This is true of some dataflow proramming languages but not others, including the one in CTM. This is expensive and has a lot of bearing on the implementation.
In fact I learned a few years ago Excel is occasionally wrong in both directions:
- it fails to recompute cells that are dirty in the name of speed
- it recomputes cells that are clean even though it's not strictly necessary
That's probably a fine tradeoff for Excel but you wouldn't want a programming language with those semantics.