Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#21

Post by miopa » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 11:32 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #17

felipap wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminded me of the top comment on the "Show HN" of Dropbox, back in 2007: "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

While this is not a good predictor of business success, it's still a viable alternative for some. Arguably, self-hosting is today more important than ever, given the unreliability and shady practices of many cloud solution vendors.

I'm totally expecting from Google to discontinue, restrict or change the API for Google Sheets at one point. It will likely be in the moment when it's hardest for you to timely update your app.

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#22

Post by EugeneOZ » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 11:52 AM UTC

So many discontinued services and people still invest their time to Google APIs.

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#23

Post by geeku » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 11:56 AM UTC

Nice side project but risky to consider for commercial product. With google restricting access to its API, it is unreliable to use a free product for commercial purposes.

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#24

Post by williamstein » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 12:02 PM UTC

Why is it called "Stein"? (Yes, that happens to be my last name...)

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#25

Post by pmlnr » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 12:22 PM UTC

> No-JavaScript solutions for the web with Stein Expedite

> Handlebars

    
    
      
        {{title}}
        By {{author}}
        
          {{content}}
        
        Read on Medium

Is there now some built-in HTML templating functionality I wasn't aware?

Since when is this no-JS?!

NO JS means NO JAVASCRIPT and not no need to write JavaScript.

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#26

Post by shivensinha4 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 12:32 PM UTC

pmlnr wrote: post #25

> No-JavaScript solutions for the web with Stein Expedite > Handlebars {{title}} By {{author}} {{content}} Read on Medium Is there now some built-in HTML templating functionality I wasn't aware? Since when is this no-JS?! NO JS means NO JAVASCRIPT and not no need to write JavaScript.

I mentioned No-JS because you don't need to write it yourself. But you do need to import a pre-built script in your HTML.

No HTML templating wizardry!

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#27

Post by shivensinha4 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 12:34 PM UTC

williamstein wrote: post #24

Why is it called "Stein"? (Yes, that happens to be my last name...)

Keep them guessing ;)

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#28

Post by andreyazimov » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 12:46 PM UTC

Nice! Using spreadsheets as a DB are trend now. Also Spreadsheets are pretty good CMS as well, so people can use it to create websites without code. I made an app called https://Sheet2Site.com which takes your spreadsheet of items/objects and translates it into an app, with filters.

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#29

Post by badestrand » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 12:48 PM UTC

Looks neat! Questions:

- Do updates show immediately (for both directions)?

- What are the limits of read/write queries?

- What are the limits of rows?

- Can I use formulas in the sheet?

- How is the type handling? Does everything get treated as text or are there date and number types?

- Do formatting options for columns (e.g. for number of decimals) survive when I alter things with the API?

Re: Show HN: Stein – Use Google Sheets as a No-Setup Database

#30

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

felipap wrote: post #14

Zaheer wrote: post #3

You can do this for free today using open source libraries. https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html used to run entirely on a Google Form + Spreadsheet and still backed by one. Submit form: https://stackoverflow.com/a/37743080 Get data from sheet: https://github.com/jsoma/tabletop Happy to answer any questions.

Reminded me of the top comment on the "Show HN" of Dropbox, back in 2007: "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

The difference is that your operating system vendor is unlikely to change the file system API to prevent a simple function such as writing files. With GSuite? Who knows.