Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, that relate to application development and analytical applications. A method of developing an application can include providing application building tools, receiving input, and generating, in a spreadsheet system, an application based on a set of the application elements and a specification of parameters. In that method, the application building tools include a development environment in a spreadsheet system and a set of application elements in the development environment. In addition, the input includes the selection of the subset of application elements from the set of application elements, and the specification of parameters for the application elements.