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

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

#51

Post by Zaheer »

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

Lol I was thinking of that comment and was hoping mine wouldn't sound it like it. I'm actually happy Stein exists and think it'll be useful to a lot of people. Part of the reason I used Google sheets was because it was a 'free' DB and so I was just highlighting the free alternative.

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

#52

Post by stevewodil »

kristiandupont wrote: post #13

I have contemplated using google sheets as storage for parts of the data that I have. It would allow me to procrastinate on many admin UI things, and it would even feel much more transparent. It just feels too fragile somehow, which isn't really a rational assessment. Does anyone have experience with it in a SAAS context?

You could also host your website or application's images by creating a facebook account and programmatically uploading the images there, and then linking to the CDN image URL from Facebook. It would work, but there are better ways to handle it.

I would just use Postgres as a database, personally.

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

#53

Post by sbarre »

geeku wrote: post #23

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.

Unless your company uses GSuite, then this can be a great tool to quickly put together small internal tools.

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

#56

Post by mirimir »

pault wrote: post #55
mirimir wrote: post #54

> You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. Why are people referring to html+script as apps?

How do you define app? Is there a clear boundary that you can define between a true app and not an app?

Well, let's see.

Begins with:
Has a 3K character script:

    !function(c){function e(e) ...
I'd say that's a web page.

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

#58

Post by pault »

mirimir wrote: post #56
pault wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define app? Is there a clear boundary that you can define between a true app and not an app?

Well, let's see. Begins with: Has a 3K character script: !function(c){function e(e) ... I'd say that's a web page.

That's a definition of webpage, but you don't explain why webpages aren't a subset of apps. I saw your comment pre-edit, which said that an app has to be downloaded to a user's device to run, but that also doesn't exclude webpages since an HTML document and its scripts also have to be downloaded to a device to run. Is it something that has to be pre-compiled? Is an html and javascript page embedded in a binary an app? I'm only trying to point out that the word "app" is too ambiguous. We can agree that a book isn't an app, but beyond that the definition is purely subjective.

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

#59

Post by mirimir »

pault wrote: post #58
mirimir wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's see. Begins with: Has a 3K character script: !function(c){function e(e) ... I'd say that's a web page.

That's a definition of webpage, but you don't explain why webpages aren't a subset of apps. I saw your comment pre-edit, which said that an app has to be downloaded to a user's device to run, but that also doesn't exclude webpages since an HTML document and its scripts also have to be downloaded to a device to run. Is it something that has to be pre-compiled? Is an html and javascript page embedded in a binary an app…

App is short for application. Web pages with scripting existed for years before anyone called anything an app.

Maybe it's just semantics. But it comes off, to me, as pretentious.

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