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Comment by nudpiedo | Hacker News Reader

"We originally planned to let people rename the rows and columns with labels and implemented the feature. Eventually we decided that we needed to assure stable reference names so prevented people form moving into the zeroth row or column. Instead we implemented the ability to split the screen vertically or horizontally. "

All the oposite from today's design in which they let people rename everything.

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> All the oposite from today's design in which they let people rename everything.

What spreadsheet program lets you rename a row or a column? The pattern I see all around is that you add your own column names as the first row for example, but the actual column doesn't get renamed. Or, you get to define your own "Named Ranges" where you can assign a name, but the row/column identifier stays the same.

But I don't think I've seen any software allowing you to rename column C to whatever you want, for example.

Apple's Numbers has a relatively clever way to pull this off. If a cell (e.g., B:$2) is in a table with a column (or row) header, all formulas will use the header field value in the variable. e.g.,

  = floor( [Strength:$Value] / 2 - 5, 1)

These labels are purely descriptive. The underlying reference is still B:$2, but it makes formulas infinitely more readable without needing to manually define named ranges for everything.

(Among many other nice features Numbers has... one of the few things I miss since my switch to Linux)

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