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Google Docs gets an API for task automation

techcrunch.com

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Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#131

Post by bad_user »

pkaye wrote: post #62
legitster wrote: post #21

They will have a lot of catchup to do to get where Office is now. I'm frankly amazed by how good Microsoft Flow has been. So many dumb business processes rely on an Excel doc somewhere, or a stupid manual email somewhere else. But with Flow I've seen just a single smarty-pants able to fully streamline an entire department one rule at a time. They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Offi…

Does Office 365 yet allow multiple users to edit the same document simultaneously. I really like they way it is done in Google Docs.

Office 365 is horrible for multi-user editing. When I last experienced it, we’ve lost edits, it’s that bad.

And actually I’ve lost edits with just plain synchronization on an iPad. I was on a plane, I edited a document I had, putting a lot of effort into it, then when my plane landed and the Internet came back, my changes vanished with no history recorded.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#133

Post by Godel_unicode »

northwest65 wrote: post #79
irrational wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they got bored with it I've always wondered why Google is so bad at keeping various services going. Your comment caused me to reflect that Google hires a lot of smart people. Smart people tend to get bored with working on the same thing and want to work on new shiny things. Could it be that the smart people at Google do a bang up job of creating new services, but then get bored and move on to something new, leaving…

>I've always wondered why Google is so bad at keeping various services going I'm starting to believe that it might be simply because low quality software is hard to maintain. They have some very complex software, but nothing of great quality. They might hire a lot of smart people, but not very many that are actually good at developing quality software. It appears that being smart doesn't make you diligent in your wor…

> Want to reply in Gmail, you have to click the reply button twice for the reply pane to appear

This doesn't happen to me, and a quick Google (ha) isn't turning up complaint posts about it. This might just be a you thing.

Have you used Google maps? Or Google {search,photos}?

I get the feeling that they have two very different grades of software they write, and the stuff written by the varsity is so good that it's invisible to it's users.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#134

Post by Godel_unicode »

treis wrote: post #93
northwest65 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've always wondered why Google is so bad at keeping various services going I'm starting to believe that it might be simply because low quality software is hard to maintain. They have some very complex software, but nothing of great quality. They might hire a lot of smart people, but not very many that are actually good at developing quality software. It appears that being smart doesn't make you diligent in your wor…

To add to this, they can't even properly display screen saver photos on Chromecast from Google photos. My 4:3 photos get the top and bottom cut off instead of being letterboxed.

Who's to say that your idea is proper? Letterboxing causes burn-in on OLEDs, not exactly ideal for a screen saver.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#135

Post by vxNsr »

legitster wrote: post #21

They will have a lot of catchup to do to get where Office is now. I'm frankly amazed by how good Microsoft Flow has been. So many dumb business processes rely on an Excel doc somewhere, or a stupid manual email somewhere else. But with Flow I've seen just a single smarty-pants able to fully streamline an entire department one rule at a time. They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Offi…

The comp I work for has half bought into the O365 thing. Most of us are on the semi-annual channel for desktop clients, a lucky few are on monthly no rhyme or reason. And bec HQ is in EU they've decided to localize all web stuff to german. this makes entering dates or modifying formulas in excel online near impossible. Also for some reason they've chosen to keep flow and teams off by default, I can activate the free version of flow by going to it, but we don't get any of the powerBI integration we're already paying for. trying to explain the idiocy of this is like talking to 2000's era chatbot that can just assure it understands but doesn't really respond to any prompts.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#136

Post by andybak »

coldtea wrote: post #51
legitster wrote: post #21

They will have a lot of catchup to do to get where Office is now. I'm frankly amazed by how good Microsoft Flow has been. So many dumb business processes rely on an Excel doc somewhere, or a stupid manual email somewhere else. But with Flow I've seen just a single smarty-pants able to fully streamline an entire department one rule at a time. They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Offi…

> They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Office, they can just do it. And no one has to get dragged into it kicking and screaming - you want to work off of an Excel file? Fine! It's still there! Plus it wont be randomly cancelled when Google decides they got bored with it after several years of neglecting it first.

This is a cliche that gets wheeled out regularly but without much critical thought.

Google cancels stuff. A lot? Maybe but they have a lot of products.

But it's not without logic and it's much less likely to effect paid products and core services. How many parts of Docs/Drive have been cancelled? How many GCP components?

Next time someone is about to post another "Google cancels everything!" comment I hope they might pause and think whether it's plausible in this specific case. (And maybe pause to consider whether they are adding anything new to the debate or just repeating the same point that's been made a thousand times previously)

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#137

Post by ghayes »

frogperson wrote: post #124
adzicg wrote: post #101

thanks, but no thanks. I spent a month building integration with google hangouts, only to see it being deprecated before we could even launch. wasted months fighting with undocumented drive realtime API issues to make it work seamlessly and it was pulled last year without replacement. drive v3 api still does not have ETAG conditional uploads that drive v2 had. never biting that google bait and switch thing with apis…

This is the reason I will not recommend Google Cloud to any of my clients. I just can't rely on them

Google Cloud has a very different SLA and deprecation policy than the APIs for Google user-facing services. I have not seen a single feature deprecated or removed without replacement in Google Cloud during my usage over the last two years.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#138

Post by dbdjfjrjvebd »

andybak wrote: post #136
coldtea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Office, they can just do it. And no one has to get dragged into it kicking and screaming - you want to work off of an Excel file? Fine! It's still there! Plus it wont be randomly cancelled when Google decides they got bored with it after several years of neglecting it first.

This is a cliche that gets wheeled out regularly but without much critical thought. Google cancels stuff. A lot? Maybe but they have a lot of products. But it's not without logic and it's much less likely to effect paid products and core services. How many parts of Docs/Drive have been cancelled? How many GCP components? Next time someone is about to post another "Google cancels everything!" comment I hope they might…

Hangouts. But chat and the new video solution are a fairly seamless transition. So seemless that I've used the new video call solution for months and not noticed its name yet.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#139

Post by mav3rick »

northwest65 wrote: post #79
irrational wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they got bored with it I've always wondered why Google is so bad at keeping various services going. Your comment caused me to reflect that Google hires a lot of smart people. Smart people tend to get bored with working on the same thing and want to work on new shiny things. Could it be that the smart people at Google do a bang up job of creating new services, but then get bored and move on to something new, leaving…

>I've always wondered why Google is so bad at keeping various services going I'm starting to believe that it might be simply because low quality software is hard to maintain. They have some very complex software, but nothing of great quality. They might hire a lot of smart people, but not very many that are actually good at developing quality software. It appears that being smart doesn't make you diligent in your wor…

Lack of care ? I don't think you understand what it takes to keep Search and Maps and YouTube working seamlessly. Many big systems that companies use were invented at Google. Sure you can find UI bugs or issues butt conveniently ignore that Gmail changed the game with it's 1GB accounts in the era of MBs. Or the uptime of critical services. You have no idea how important design and code reviews are inside.
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