[灌水]“数据透视表”的诞生

FENGJUN

“数据透视表”的诞生 The concept that led to today's pivot table came from the halls of the Lotus Development Corporation with a revolutionary spreadsheet program called Lotus Improv. Improv was envisioned in 1986 by Pito Salas of the Advanced Technology Group at Lotus. Realizing that spreadsheets often have patterns of data, Pito concluded that if one could build a tool that could recognize these patterns, then one could build enhanced data models. Lotus ran with the concept and started developing the next-generation spreadsheet.

导致今天“数据透视表”的想法源自拥有具革命意义的电子表程序Lotus Improv的Lotu公司过道。1986年该公司高技术小组的Pito Salas即有了Improv这一设想。他认识到电子表常常具有各种数据样式，于是得出这样的结论：如果有人能建立识别这些样式的工具，那么他就可以建立起高级数据模型。Lotus公司正是遵循这样的观点开始研发下一代电子表软件的。 Pito Salas—— 数据透视表概念的发明者 http://www.salas.com/work/resume.htm

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-30 15:21:31编辑过]

FENGJUN

Throughout 1987, Lotus demoed its new program to a few companies. In 1988, Steve Jobs saw the program and immediately wanted it developed for his upcoming NeXT computer platform. The program, finally named Lotus Improv, was eventually shipped in 1991 for the NeXT platform. A version for Windows was introduced in 1993.

在1987年，Lotus公司便向几家公司演示了它的新程序。1988年，Steve Jobs见到了这个程序后就立即希望它能被开发成一个能在其即将发行的NeXT计算机系统上运行的版本。这个程序后来被命名为Lotus Improv，并最终在1991年被移植到了NeXT平台。1993年，Improv 的Windows版本也问世了。

FENGJUN

The core concept behind Improv was that data, data views, and formulas should be encapsulated as separate entities and treated as different animals. For the first time in a spreadsheet program, a dataset was given a name that could be grouped into larger categories. This naming and grouping capability paved the way for the most powerful feature in Improv, rearranging data. With Improv, a user could define and store a set of categories and then change the view by simply dragging the category names with the mouse. The user could also create totals and group summaries. Improv背后的核心观念是：数据、数据视图和公式都应被封装成各自独立的实体，即可以将它们看成不同的动物个体。正是在一个电子表软件中，一组数据首次被冠以一个名字且被包含于更大的分类中。这种命名和分类的功能为Improv（灵活）重置数据清除了障碍。通过Improv，用户可以定义和存储一组类别然后用鼠标只是简单的拖动类别的名称来改变视图。同时，用户也能创建类别总计和分组合计。

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-30 15:18:46编辑过]

FENGJUN

Microsoft eventually picked up on this concept in its pivot table functionality in Excel 5. Years later, with the release of Excel 97, Microsoft offered users an enhanced pivot table wizard and key improvements to pivot table functionality, such as the ability to add calculated fields. Excel 97 also opened up the pivot cache to developers, fundamentally changing the way pivot tables are created and managed. Microsoft introduced the pivot chart with Excel 2000, providing users a way to represent pivot tables graphically. Since Excel 2000, changes made to pivot tables have been mainly cosmetic, much to the chagrin of pivot table fans everywhere.

Microsoft公司最终在Excel 5的数据透视表功能中吸纳了上述概念。几年后，伴随Excel 97的发行，Microsoft公司是向用户提供了更为高级的数据透视表向导和关键性的功能改进，如增加了“计算字段”功能。Excel 97同时也向开发者开放了透视表缓冲区，缓冲区决定了透视表的生成和控制方式。在Excel 2000中，Microsoft公司引如了数据透视图，从而使用户能够以图表的方式更为直观地展示数据。从Excel 2000开始，数据透视表的改变都是修饰性的（没有实质性的功能改变），这主要是为了回应来自各地的透视表fans的不满意见。

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-30 15:24:52编辑过]