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Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

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Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#21

Post by mej10 »

atacrawl wrote: post #19

One feature that’s still missing, though, is actually running spreadsheet-style calculations on your numbers in Grid. Doesn't this preclude Grid from being a spreadsheet app?

It isn't even that hard to get a basic implementation of such functionality. Not sure why this is missing.

Just make a directed graph out of cell references. Get the strongly connected components. All of the components with more than one vertex contain a loop and can't be computed. Remove those and you get a directed acyclic graph. Now you can topological sort them for cell dependencies, and start calculating them in the order they are needed.

Or if your language has a dataflow implementation it is even easier. Haven't seen one of these for Obj-C though.

I will add that this looks pretty cool, though.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#23

Post by smikhanov »

johnrob wrote: post #7

It seems like the focus is on casual usage (photos, videos, etc). Why not focus more on the business side (i.e. numbers)?

Shameless plug: I made an app for that. It's called Scalar (http://scalarapp.com). It takes a different approach to handling calculations than Excel or Grid (abandons the table structure completely), but hey, unlike Grid founders I wasn't on Microsoft Excel team :)

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#24

Post by pg »

atacrawl wrote: post #19

One feature that’s still missing, though, is actually running spreadsheet-style calculations on your numbers in Grid. Doesn't this preclude Grid from being a spreadsheet app?

No more than any version one of something is precluded from becoming complete.

Maybe you think you're making some sort of important point here. Or maybe you realize your comment is inane and you think it's witty. But (perhaps without realizing it) you and the people upvoting you represent one of the worst forces at work in the world. The people who ridicule new things when they first appear in incomplete form are one of the worst drags on innovation.

I think most people agree now that it's valid strategy, particularly in software, to launch a simple version one of something and then iterate rapidly. I'm constantly pushing founders to do that. And you know what's the biggest thing holding them back? The fear that people will make fun of the first thing they launch.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#25

Post by martythemaniak »

mej10 wrote: post #21
atacrawl wrote: post #19

One feature that’s still missing, though, is actually running spreadsheet-style calculations on your numbers in Grid. Doesn't this preclude Grid from being a spreadsheet app?

It isn't even that hard to get a basic implementation of such functionality. Not sure why this is missing. Just make a directed graph out of cell references. Get the strongly connected components. All of the components with more than one vertex contain a loop and can't be computed. Remove those and you get a directed acyclic graph. Now you can topological sort them for cell dependencies, and start calculating them in…

It may be easy, but it'll still take time to develop. If it's not critical and won't keep you from getting your initial batch of users, it's much better to launch and add it in 3 weeks, rather than waiting an extra 3 weeks to launch.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#26

Post by mej10 »

martythemaniak wrote: post #25
mej10 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't even that hard to get a basic implementation of such functionality. Not sure why this is missing. Just make a directed graph out of cell references. Get the strongly connected components. All of the components with more than one vertex contain a loop and can't be computed. Remove those and you get a directed acyclic graph. Now you can topological sort them for cell dependencies, and start calculating them in…

It may be easy, but it'll still take time to develop. If it's not critical and won't keep you from getting your initial batch of users, it's much better to launch and add it in 3 weeks, rather than waiting an extra 3 weeks to launch.

I may have sounded a bit negative, but I don't think it was a "bad" move, especially seeing as how I am personally excited about Grid even without it currently having this feature.

It just shouldn't come as a surprise when a lot of people question the choice of leaving out the #1 feature of spreadsheets. Even on version one.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#27

Post by heartbreak »

pg wrote: post #24
atacrawl wrote: post #19

One feature that’s still missing, though, is actually running spreadsheet-style calculations on your numbers in Grid. Doesn't this preclude Grid from being a spreadsheet app?

No more than any version one of something is precluded from becoming complete. Maybe you think you're making some sort of important point here. Or maybe you realize your comment is inane and you think it's witty. But (perhaps without realizing it) you and the people upvoting you represent one of the worst forces at work in the world. The people who ridicule new things when they first appear in incomplete form are one…

So you're telling me that you would financially back a company that intended to release a photo-sharing application that did not provide an avenue for users to upload photos? Isn't shipping version 1 worthless if what you're actually shipping is version 0.01? (Yes, I realize they haven't released yet.)

I don't think he was being inane, witty, or that he is a part of one of the "worst forces at work in the world." He is simply stating that to advertise your product as spreadsheet software, it should probably include some of the features that users expect to be found in spreadsheet software.

The way I see it, GRID isn't spreadsheet software at all (and doesn't seem to want to be based on the website), and shouldn't be advertising itself as such.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#28

Post by mixmax »

johnrob wrote: post #7

It seems like the focus is on casual usage (photos, videos, etc). Why not focus more on the business side (i.e. numbers)?

because that niche is already pretty well filled with excel, and it's hard to unthrone a program that is actually really good at what it does.

On the other hand, casual users aren't a natural fit for excel. The program has way too many complicated features, and isn't as simple as it could be. This seems perfect for the casual user that just want to create simple stuff that looks good.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#29

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #20
johnrob wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be better served to drop the 'Spreadsheet' moniker. It leads people to incorrect assumptions about the product and likely filters out potential users. 'Whiteboard', 'Slideshow', and 'Scrapbooking' are all terms that seem to better represent the (current) intended use case.

This is just a version one. They're going to do all the numeric stuff too.

[deleted]

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#30

Post by majormajor »

heartbreak wrote: post #27
pg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No more than any version one of something is precluded from becoming complete. Maybe you think you're making some sort of important point here. Or maybe you realize your comment is inane and you think it's witty. But (perhaps without realizing it) you and the people upvoting you represent one of the worst forces at work in the world. The people who ridicule new things when they first appear in incomplete form are one…

So you're telling me that you would financially back a company that intended to release a photo-sharing application that did not provide an avenue for users to upload photos? Isn't shipping version 1 worthless if what you're actually shipping is version 0.01? (Yes, I realize they haven't released yet.) I don't think he was being inane, witty, or that he is a part of one of the "worst forces at work in the world." He…

There is a disconnect between what a spreadsheet originally was and all the different layout/calendering/organizational stuff people also use Excel for today. For technical users it's a startling omission, but I don't think a non-technical user is going to see this and its screenshots and immediately wonder where the formulas are.

Is the term misused? Who cares? It looks really cool because it's focused on the non-math use cases (which IMO are much better suited to a tablet anyway, where I wouldn't want to be entering columns of numbers on an on-screen keyboard).

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