Here's a thing I wrote last month: jwzsheet.
It is a small and self-contained PHP and JavaScript library for generating HTML tables of spreadsheet-like reports, including arithmetically-computed cell values.
"I am not going to write a spreadsheet", I kept saying to myself, "that's stupid."
"Ok, maybe just a little bit of a spreadsheet. This far no farther."
"Ok, maybe just a little bit more."
As the song says, "I tell myself I will not go, even as a drive there."