The need for computing literacy is higher than ever: the number of end-user programmers has been on the rise since the dawn of the digital age and there is a healthy debate on whether basic programming skills should be mandatory in education. Spreadsheets are the preferred computing tool of industry practitioners and not uncommon among K-12 students. Unfortunately, end-users rarely overcome the conceptual impedance between the core spreadsheet functionality and the adjunct programming environments offered by spreadsheet tools. At the other end of the spectrum, most professional developers don’t consider spreadsheets a good platform for serious endeavors. The ZenSheet project empirically shows that a generalization of the core spreadsheet functionality can preserve the live nature of the same, provide the features software professionals desire, and offer a gradual path for end-users to learn sound and transferable programming skills.