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I only use Google Sheets

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Re: I only use Google Sheets

#131

Post by IAmBroom »

cousin_it wrote: post #107
hannofcart wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially so for people who can't code. And for those who can, Appscript gives your spreadsheet super powers. For those who don't know, you are not stuck with writing JS in the Appscript integrated web IDE that comes with Google sheets (though honestly it's not too bad itself). Using clasp, you can develop your code locally in an IDE of your choice, in typescript and have a build step compile those to js, and have…

I spent some time with Apps Script a few weeks ago. It has some strange design decisions: 1) Everything runs on the server, including triggers and even custom functions! This means every script call requires a roundtrip, every cell using a custom function requires a roundtrip on each change, and it feels much slower than the rest of the UI. 2) You can't put a change trigger on a cell or subset of cells, only on the w…

> 2) You can't put a change trigger on a cell or subset of cells, only on the whole sheet. So you have to manually check which cell the trigger happened on.

This is true of MS Excel's scripting language (VBA) as well. Worksheets are objects with events; cells are objects without (VBA-accessible) events.

It may be an issue with scaling and efficiency.

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#132

Post by Aachen »

edoceo wrote: post #52
Aachen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep telling people to make backups of "cloud" services ever since Grooveshark died from one day to the next Maybe Spotify won't be taken down overnight, but they can lock me out for various reasons such as misdetecting an IP address (Google wouldn't let me log in at all when they thought I was in Russia, when I was at 31C3 in Hamburg, Germany, a conference where they afaik use some temporary IP space — I don't kno…

Any good tools for automatic backup of these things? How would a non-tech-type do it?

There's sadly no silver bullet, especially for non-techies. To me it's like buying vegan products where available: I can't trivially become vegan with no effort, but I can affect market forces by preferentially buying things that align with that ideal. People could at least apply this where possible and buy products where they're in control somehow

For storage platforms like Dropbox or Onedrive, it can be as simple as ctrl+c'ing the data out of there every now and then

For Spotify, you can do the GDPR export and check that you can open it somehow. Even if it's not super readable, you can figure that out (with a tech friend or LLM perhaps) if you turn out to ever need it

For Signal, I've got no idea. The format is hard to work with for hardcore techies. They really really don't want you, ahem, attackers to get that data in the clear. (Two-sided coin). Make sure to turn on the backups, write down the passphrase, and take them off your phone every now and then, and hope there's a restore method when you need it

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#133

Post by IAmBroom »

yomismoaqui wrote: post #76
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't Microsoft Access basically that? There's also Google's AppSheet, which may be that too.

Microsoft Access requires more training (tables, foreign keys...) and from experience most of the people using Excel managed to bend it to do what they wanted. The maintainability of the resulting systems was not great, but they did the job and worse is better I guess..

Add in to that: programming VBA for Excel spreadsheets is extremely trivial; programming in VBA for Access is second worst only to programming in Visio, MS Office's awful drawing program.

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#134

Post by IAmBroom »

thm wrote: post #105
corry wrote: post #59

Always overlooked point in these pro/anti-spreadsheet discussions: A spreadsheet gives you a DB, a quickly and easily customized UI, and iterative / easy-to-debug data processing all in a package that everyone in the working world already understands. AND with a freedom that allows the creator to do it however they want. AND it's fairly portable. You can build incredible things in spreadsheets. I remain convinced tha…

And not to forget, you can run Doom and Tetris in them.

In both GS and XL, actually.

Excel used to have its own video game as an Easter egg.

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#135

Post by skydhash »

GuB-42 wrote: post #67
Aachen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep telling people to make backups of "cloud" services ever since Grooveshark died from one day to the next Maybe Spotify won't be taken down overnight, but they can lock me out for various reasons such as misdetecting an IP address (Google wouldn't let me log in at all when they thought I was in Russia, when I was at 31C3 in Hamburg, Germany, a conference where they afaik use some temporary IP space — I don't kno…

> I keep telling people to make backups of "cloud" services The usual rule when making backups is that you need 3 copies, one of them offsite. A cloud storage service counts as an offsite copy, but you still need two more, typically one on your computer and one in cold storage (ex: external hard drive). Treat cloud storage like you treat your hard drive, it can fail at any time. The failure modes are different: mecha…

Also backups in two separate legalizations if the hosting company is not in the same country as you or your company.

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#136

Post by jader201 »

thesuitonym wrote: post #100
corry wrote: post #59

Always overlooked point in these pro/anti-spreadsheet discussions: A spreadsheet gives you a DB, a quickly and easily customized UI, and iterative / easy-to-debug data processing all in a package that everyone in the working world already understands. AND with a freedom that allows the creator to do it however they want. AND it's fairly portable. You can build incredible things in spreadsheets. I remain convinced tha…

Another oft overlooked point is that anti-spreadsheet people aren't actually against using spreadsheets, we just want our coworkers to stop placing mission critical operations in an enormous, half-baked spreadsheet that exists only in some long-since retired users home directory.

I see these complaints on HN a lot, and maybe it’s anecdotal, but I just don’t see this in the real world these days.

If someone shares a sheet with me, it’s for the intended purpose of sharing data and/or visualizations of that data.

I’ve always been a huge fan of spreadsheets, and the rare times I’ve encountered them being misused, it was a long time ago, and not near enough to make me an “anti-spreadsheet” person.

It sounds like these anti-spreadsheet people need to find a new place to work and/or new coworkers.

Either way people shouldn’t be anti-spreadsheets because some people misuse them. That doesn’t change the fact that they’re a great tool for tracking/sharing/visualizing data.

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#137

Post by Aachen »

portaouflop wrote: post #55
Aachen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep telling people to make backups of "cloud" services ever since Grooveshark died from one day to the next Maybe Spotify won't be taken down overnight, but they can lock me out for various reasons such as misdetecting an IP address (Google wouldn't let me log in at all when they thought I was in Russia, when I was at 31C3 in Hamburg, Germany, a conference where they afaik use some temporary IP space — I don't kno…

If you give a shit about music you should not use Spotify at all, but that is probably a different discussion

It is, but I think most people would care to at least have the song list, even if they'd need to go out and buy the corresponding data if they stop using the streaming service, or manually enter it into another streaming service

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#138

Post by Ajedi32 »

corry wrote: post #59

Always overlooked point in these pro/anti-spreadsheet discussions: A spreadsheet gives you a DB, a quickly and easily customized UI, and iterative / easy-to-debug data processing all in a package that everyone in the working world already understands. AND with a freedom that allows the creator to do it however they want. AND it's fairly portable. You can build incredible things in spreadsheets. I remain convinced tha…

I've long wondered why there's not a more incremental transition path from spreadsheets to a full blown database with a custom UI. It just seems like spreadsheets are right on the cusp of being able to fill that that role but lack just a few key features which might make it viable (structured data, native SQL query support, custom UI elements, IDE integration, etc).

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#139

Post by IAmBroom »

Spooky23 wrote: post #80
throwaway290 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who ever lost apple account by being banned? with no recourse? I don't remember a story like that

I've never heard a rant about people being banned, but i can think of a half dozen people who have lost their icloud accounts due to the combo of inexplicably not remembering or writing down their passwords and selling or losing a phone.

How is that different from losing access to, say, your own computer by the same route?

That's entirely different from another entity denying you access to your data.

Re: I only use Google Sheets

#140

Post by velcrovan »

piltdownman wrote: post #109
velcrovan wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spreadsheet gives you a DB Yeah a DB where any user can accidentally hit the spacebar and erase a formula, and never see any warning that their outputs are now horribly inaccurate.

Data > Protect sheets and ranges, choose Protect range or Protect sheet, and then click Set permissions to customize who can edit them. What Problem?

I am anal about doing this at the range level, but few people are.
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