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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

#41

Post by killwhitey »

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…

Maybe I'm just not familiar with modern usage of the word 'spreadsheet' but when I hear it I instantly think of accounting worksheets, visicalc, excel and the like. If the very core of this app isn't the same as a classic spreadsheet app, why even throw that word around? It's bad marketing.

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

#42

Post by killyourheros »

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…

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 your ego is showing.

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

#44

Post by goronbjorn »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
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…

Founders' emotional reactions to criticism aside, isn't one of the chief benefits of releasing quickly the market input? One can feel sad about that feedback or, after properly weighting it, parse it as the valuable guidance it is. The markets provide cruel, ruthless feedback in the form of buy/pass behaviour. Getting that feedback as early as possible on one's MVP is insightful, albeit painful. Criticism can be more…

That's actually Paul Graham that replied, not one of the founders.

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

#45

Post by stcredzero »

atacrawl wrote: post #38
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…

I asked a straightforward question about whether an app that can't be used to create a spreadsheet should be considered a spreadsheet app, and because of that I "represent one of the worst forces at work in the world." I neither ridiculed nor made fun of Grid, as you claim I did; however, you seem to take pleasure in ridiculing and making fun of me. I'm sorry that I didn't heap the app with praise -- from the video I…

> from the video I saw, it does look like an impressive beginning. Perhaps if I had, my question would have been met with an answer without such disrespect.

One does need to take a bit of care to avoid looking like you're being snide and "witty." Something which is ambiguously a salient point or a bit of snark may be mistaken for snark. (If it might look like snark, it might look like snark?)

Or, one can just not care. If you have interesting things to say, long term you can weather a few dozen downvotes.

I took your comment to be "the elephant in the room." (I've been thinking of a "sub-sub-spreadsheet" app -- one that just totals columns of numbers.)

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

#46

Post by kajecounterhack »

atacrawl wrote: post #38
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…

I asked a straightforward question about whether an app that can't be used to create a spreadsheet should be considered a spreadsheet app, and because of that I "represent one of the worst forces at work in the world." I neither ridiculed nor made fun of Grid, as you claim I did; however, you seem to take pleasure in ridiculing and making fun of me. I'm sorry that I didn't heap the app with praise -- from the video I…

I think if you phrased it as less of a critical question e.g "Does this preclude Grid from being a spreadsheet app right now?" and/or perhaps "Will this feature be added eventually?" -- you may have received a warmer response. I do think the response was a bit sharp but I hope it's understandable.

Paul never said he wanted you to heap praise on the app. A simple rephrasing would have sufficed :)

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

#47

Post by JumpCrisscross »

goronbjorn wrote: post #44
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Founders' emotional reactions to criticism aside, isn't one of the chief benefits of releasing quickly the market input? One can feel sad about that feedback or, after properly weighting it, parse it as the valuable guidance it is. The markets provide cruel, ruthless feedback in the form of buy/pass behaviour. Getting that feedback as early as possible on one's MVP is insightful, albeit painful. Criticism can be more…

That's actually Paul Graham that replied, not one of the founders.

I know, but he invoked the founder(s') reactions as a reason negative feedback is a drag on innovation.

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

#48

Post by kennystone »

Beautiful UI and a great opportunity. The iPad demands to be taken everywhere, and Apple has proven with iWork - Keynote especially - that office apps can be awesome on a tablet. Google's Spreadsheet webapp, on the other hand, is completely unusable on touch devices.

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

#50

Post by hassy »

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…

You forgot parsing the formulae. You forgot having to decide which functions to include and implementing them. You forgot testing. Sure those aren't super hard, but minutes add up to hours and hours add up to days which turn into weeks. Most importantly, you forgot the UI. Building the UI for entering formulae - one that makes sense on the iPad and not just a copy of the one from Excel or Numbers (those suck) - would take a while.
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