University of Massachusetts (UMass) at Amherst computer
science doctoral student Daniel Barowy recently released a new data-debugging software
tool at the Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages and Applications
(OOPSLA) conference in Portland, OR. Developed as a plug-in for Microsoft's
Excel program, CheckCell automatically detects errors in spreadsheets. Barowy's
team decided to build the tool after a UMass economist and colleagues found
spreadsheet data errors in a paper by Harvard economists. His team wondered
whether software could find errors automatically. CheckCell combines data
analysis and program analysis. The tool immediately flags suspicious data
points that deserve a second look, using statistical analysis and data flow
analysis. Hidden, high-impact data points are marked in red, and spreadsheet
designers are asked to check them. "It's like having a helper who says, 'pay
attention to these cells, they really matter,'" says Barowy's advisor,
Emery Berger, a professor in UMass' School of Computer Science.
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