Viewing profile — davidpolberger

I'm working on turning our statically-typed formula engine -- that we use for Calcapp, our app builder -- into a real hosted solution (as well as a library). I discussed it in July…

Codex can currently be used with a free OpenAI account. This was mentioned in their announcement yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46859054), but as they buried the l…

I'm a co-founder of Calcapp, an app builder for formula-driven apps, and I recently received an email from a customer ending their subscription. They said they appreciated being ab…

This is wild. I gave it some legacy XML describing a formula-driven calculator app, and it produced a working web app in under a minute: https://aistudio.google.com/app/prompts?sta…

I like to use Claude Code to write deterministic computer programs for me, which then perform the actual work. It saves a lot of time. I had a big backlog of "nice to have scripts"…

I'm a co-founder of Calcapp, an app builder for formula-driven apps using Excel-like formulas. I spent a couple of days using Claude Code to build 20 new templates for us, and I wa…

I've been using Claude Code a lot lately, and I've been thinking of integrating it into our SaaS tool (a formula-driven app designer). I've been holding off primarily because I've …

Other apt comparisons to what I'm building include HyperFormula and Microsoft Power Fx.

No, not really. GoRules appears to be a decision engine that allows non-technical users to define rules visually through a graphical interface. Engineers can then interpret and eva…

I'm working on an engine for Excel-like formulas, which will be available both as a library and as a service (which I've mentioned on HN a few times before). I originally started w…

Thanks, I'll point their support staff to that document. I was told that Firefox is no longer supported by a support technician over the phone. A different support technician wrote…

I was just in touch with Stripe support, and they confirmed that Firefox is no longer a supported browser. That means that issues that can only be reproduced on Firefox will no lon…

I know this doesn't add much value to the discussion, but I was really proud of my UIN when I was a teenager. And this may be my last chance to flaunt it, so here it is: 1779900 So…

Thanks, it certainly has been. After only a couple of years in the software industry proper, though, I felt I had seen all I needed to see. Crunch time. Arbitrary, ill-informed man…

I have been self-employed since 2008, when I quit my job in software engineering to go all-in on my software business (that dated from 2003). That failed spectacularly, because I o…

Could someone provide insights into the implications of a hypothetical Schrems III for EU-based SaaS companies that host their servers in the US, particularly those containing Pers…

Everyone -- thanks for your constructive comments. I think that we'll start off by releasing the libraries under permissive licenses, and see how that goes. Releasing the code of t…

No, it just feels like the right thing to do, and I'm hoping that others could benefit from the work. While I would like to release some libraries under permissive licenses, I real…

A would-be competitor, in a country not respecting intellectual property laws, might get a few customers by launching our product and charging only a fraction of what we charge. Ho…

Good point.

The service is named Calcapp, an app builder for spreadsheet-savvy users ( https://www.calcapp.net ). The codebase weights in at half a million lines of code and documentation, wit…

I run a small SaaS business and our code is currently proprietary and hidden from view, as is the norm (the client-side code is minified). However, I would prefer to make it public…

You're probably referring to the wonderful nXML mode, which has been a part of stock Emacs for years now: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/nxml-mod...