Live data from Hacker News

Google Spreadsheets and Python

twilio.com

101–110 of 143 posts

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#102
post #98

Huh. I bet that in the Docs SRE team at Google there's a senior SRE who's having a "I felt a great disturbance in the Force moment." Google Sheets is awesome, people at Google are smart, but they are not capable of magic. In the case of Sheets, the most reasonable sharding scheme for the database backing it would be based on some collection of spreadsheets (in the extreme case it would be just one spreadsheet, but th…

One of the good things to come out of Google Wave was a better understanding of how to scale using (eg) operational transform. Even without that, scaling a mostly read only spreadsheet backend isn't as hard as you are making out.

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#103
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cofounder of Airtable here, I hear you and that's on the roadmap :).

Could you spend a couple of minutes to describe the advantages of Airtable over Fieldbook or Ragic? I've been gripped by indecision regarding which tool to use, and hence use none of them.

Fieldbook co-founder here, thought I would weigh in. I agree with Howie that he doesn't spend much time using Fieldbook, since we already have many of the features he mentioned.

IMHO Fieldbook has the best user experience anywhere for building and working with a real relational data model, including many-to-many relationships, sophisticated queries, and aggregated reports. We've done a ton of iteration with real users and hundreds of usability tests to make these features natural and intuitive.

Fieldbook customers use it on a daily basis for their core business information and processes, and they're very happy. Read our reviews here: http://www.capterra.com/database-management-software/spotlig...

But there's no need to be gripped by indecision! Just try them both, it's free. That will tell you which one works best for you. Message us in-app if you have any questions, we're happy to help you get set up!

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#104

I love Google Sheets. It is so much more powerful than 99.9% of the users appreciate. Here is how I use it at my day job as head of PM at New Relic: - Fetch deals closed and lost hourly from Salesforce - Fetch for each of our 14k+ paid accounts usage metrics using our Insights product - Pull both items into a nice color-coded business dashboard that is near realtime - Send said dashboard out as a PDF to a bunch of st…

Totally agree on Google Sheets. I love the connectivity of sheets and the best application I have seen is grades at the school district when you have a lot of kids. It is so easy for me and my wife

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#106
Google Sheets fully integrates with Google BigQuery as well! [0]

You can create a BigQuery table that's powered by a Google Sheet, or export data straight to Sheets for quick and dirty data wrangling. Some folks use Google Forms or Google Sheets to update ledgers, SKUs, or what have you, with data flowing straight to BigQuery for analysis against clickstream data, server logs, Google Analytics data, weather, etc.

Love AppScript - so many possibilities for a "serverless" framework. How about ODBC?

[0] https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2016/05/bigquery-inte...

(worked on BigQuery, work in Google Cloud)

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#107

Having run an (internal) app that is deeply integrated with Google Sheets for about a year, I think that Sheets is good and bad. It's _extremely_ powerful for allowing business users to easily get access to and manipulate data manually. Downside is that it really struggles past a few thousand rows when you've got more than 20 or so columns. Definitely good for a quick and dirty way to expose data to internal users, b…

If anyone from Google is reading this: please add a database (yes, like a cloud version of MS ACCESS) in the Google Docs/Drive suite. Has anyone looked at "Fusion Tables?" A google search reveals that is what it is supposed to be.

Sheets integrates with BigQuery!

There's also ODBC in AppScript (although I haven't tested it to tell you how well it works).

(work on Google Cloud)

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#108

I have a CMS where the client adjusts their website in Google Spreadsheets. Easy and simple. Multiple auths and roles and it's cached, so it's not queried every minute ( pressing a link clears the cache)

I use something similar, but not quite as involved to let a restaurant update their daily specials on their website.

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#109
I remember seeing people in Second Life talking about using Google Spreadsheets as database using LSL so people didn't have to run external databases. Pretty interesting stuff even though I don't think it's really meant for this use case.

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#110
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cofounder of Airtable here, I hear you and that's on the roadmap :).

Could you spend a couple of minutes to describe the advantages of Airtable over Fieldbook or Ragic? I've been gripped by indecision regarding which tool to use, and hence use none of them.

I had heard of airtable and checked it out and thought: this is exactly what I have needed this whole time. It is a much slicker version of SmartSheet.

And then I just found out about Fieldbook through your comment and it looks really good too. It's the only other product I've seen that is in the ballpark.

And then both founders are right here on HN pointing out more features.

Post reply on HN