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Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

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Re: Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

#11
This seems like it would be a great idea if it can be done because the market for it would probably be very large.

However it seems to me that doing this would be very difficult for at least 2 main reasons.

First spreadsheets can be organized in essentially arbitrary ways and there is no standard way of defining the semantics of data in them. There can also be all sorts of references between data items and unlike SQL there is nothing to explicitly define the nature of these references. How could a program take an arbitrary collection of spreadsheets and transform them into a webapp that has significantly more functionality than just loading them into Google docs ?

Second spreadsheets often use macros and other programming constructs so I think you also have the problem of building a general translator from macros/VB/Excel functions to javascript/whatever backend language you're using. This again seems like a fairly difficult problem to tackle in general.

Re: Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

#12
post #10
post #7

Hey there, I created an app called spreadsheet.io that did something similar (Google Refine + Fusion Tables). I have no bandwidth for dev, but am open to partnership.

I would like to see what your app is about, but spreadsheet.io returns a 503 error, can I see something about it on another place?

Yea I took it offline. I'll update this thread with a link to details.

Re: Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

#13
post #11

This seems like it would be a great idea if it can be done because the market for it would probably be very large. However it seems to me that doing this would be very difficult for at least 2 main reasons. First spreadsheets can be organized in essentially arbitrary ways and there is no standard way of defining the semantics of data in them. There can also be all sorts of references between data items and unlike SQL…

I agree with you that it is a difficult problem to tackle and I've been thinking partly on what you say.

About your first point there are two important things, first that we are going to start with simple spreadsheets and then evolve to more complex ones. And second that we are going to have some user interaction, because there is a lot of information that is in the user's head that we can't infer only from the data.

About the second point, the first "simple" spreadsheets are going to be (probably) without macros, etc. (anyway at the start we can do ThingsThatDontScale(TM)). I think that making a transpiler from excel functions to a programming language shouldn't be that difficult, but the macros are a totally different beast.

Thanks for your reply!

Re: Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

#16
post #4

This is a problem I have that I thought was near to impossible. I have a nightmare test case for you. I am a property manager of 1000 units. We have 40 properties each of which we track vacancies with a spreadsheet. They've got all relative property data on them as well. Let me know if you are interested. My solution was to build a web app for this completely out of spreadsheet land. But I've got some other things to…

Wow sounds like the kind of thing patio11 touched upon in a comment about where there is a spreadsheet being banded about there is a potential saas.

Re: Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

#17
This is already happening on a lot of fronts, I've built entire apps on zapier.

What are your thoughts on the following:

Flex.io zapier.com Blockspring Zoho Creator Domo

If you build this platform I think you have to start application first and not try to theorize it.

Re: Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

#18

This is already happening on a lot of fronts, I've built entire apps on zapier. What are your thoughts on the following: Flex.io zapier.com Blockspring Zoho Creator Domo If you build this platform I think you have to start application first and not try to theorize it.

From the apps you mention, except for zoho creator, I feel like are all developer oriented (I can be wrong).

In a way, what I want to do is to make apps using spreadsheets as the requirements for the app.

What do you mean by 'start application first and not try to theorize it'? Isn't that I don't agree but I didn't understand it well and it looks like somenthing interesting to take into account.

Re: Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

#19
post #18

This is already happening on a lot of fronts, I've built entire apps on zapier. What are your thoughts on the following: Flex.io zapier.com Blockspring Zoho Creator Domo If you build this platform I think you have to start application first and not try to theorize it.

From the apps you mention, except for zoho creator, I feel like are all developer oriented (I can be wrong). In a way, what I want to do is to make apps using spreadsheets as the requirements for the app. What do you mean by 'start application first and not try to theorize it'? Isn't that I don't agree but I didn't understand it well and it looks like somenthing interesting to take into account.

I'm not a developer though..... I use these ones.

Re: Apply HN: Turn your spreadsheets into a complete webapp in minutes

#20
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the apps you mention, except for zoho creator, I feel like are all developer oriented (I can be wrong). In a way, what I want to do is to make apps using spreadsheets as the requirements for the app. What do you mean by 'start application first and not try to theorize it'? Isn't that I don't agree but I didn't understand it well and it looks like somenthing interesting to take into account.

I'm not a developer though..... I use these ones.

Ok, maybe 'Developer' wasn't the best term, what I really meant was that those products are for people that are somewhat technical oriented.

For example, I see from your submission history that your are probably a biochemist [1] and also that you know what is a regular expression [2] so I guess that you know how to program to some degree, and that if you wanted you probably could make your own crud app.

The majority of people that I imagine using my product dont't know nor want to know how to program, let alone what a regular expression is.

BTW, im still interested on what you meant by 'start application first and not try to theorize it' :)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10863718 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11024116

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