Relating to the Real World
If the cell formula cannot define the relationship of a cell to the real world, something else must. This context is provided by the cell’s column name and row identifier.
A convenient way to think of this contextual data is as a telescopic sight on a hunting rifle. One hair of the telescopic sight is the column name and the other hair in the telescopic sight is the row identifier. Those two parameters work together to define the context of the value being sighted, as shown in Figure 3.10.
When transforming a spreadsheet into corporate data, it is desirable to make the process as streamlined and as automated as possible. Future chapters on spreadsheet disambiguation will outline the work that needs to be done here.
