New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline • Hacker News Board

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#121

Post by wvenable » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:14 PM UTC

greenburger wrote: post #108

Spearchucker wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Gmail faster than Outlook? I've used both for as long as they've existed, and both for work and personal use, and don't see where or how Gmail is faster. Not going to bother with the more powerful comment. This being HN and all I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're simply not familiar enough with Outlook, rather than trolling.

At my last job I used Outlook and was very frustrated by the speed of searching my mail. Outlook seemed to take ages; Gmail on the other hand excels at searching. Disclaimer: I don't have as much experience with Outlook as I do with Gmail. And it could very likely have been the backend at my last place.

Searching always been pretty much instantaneous for me at work. But when I used Outlook for my personal email it was terrible and I now use Thunderbird at home for superior searching. So I don't know -- probably everyone here is right.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#122

Post by gdulli » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:15 PM UTC

Spearchucker wrote: post #94

selectnull wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with you that excel is still more powerful than google spreadsheet but I don't agree that's because of native vs web type of app, because gmail is more powerful (and faster) than outlook. So let's call it subjective and give it a rest. The main reason we switched to google apps is collaboration: all the features in the world do not really matter when the whole team can open and edit a document at the sa…

How is Gmail faster than Outlook? I've used both for as long as they've existed, and both for work and personal use, and don't see where or how Gmail is faster. Not going to bother with the more powerful comment. This being HN and all I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're simply not familiar enough with Outlook, rather than trolling.

Maybe Gmail can be fast when you have a small inbox and a low-latency internet connection. I don't remember complaining about the performance early on. But now it takes 3-10 seconds to switch to a label.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#123

Post by source99 » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:16 PM UTC

gdulli wrote: post #109

bhouston wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail UI sucks in part because they are going for the masses, not the power user. It isn't HTML5's fault.

That could definitely be part of it. Outlook isn't dumbed down because it's not primarily aimed at home users. Maybe Gmail makes sense for few people in the office the way Outlook makes sense for few people at home. That doesn't change the fact that the bandwidth/latency profiles are different going to the server room in the building than going out to the internet. But I might see a big improvement over what Gmail is…

What features would you add to Gmail to make it more useful for business users?

What UI fixes would you make?

How do I get started writing plugins for gmail to add the above features and fixes?

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#124

Post by gngeal » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:17 PM UTC

gecko wrote: post #101

sockgrant wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google can't force other browsers to implement features. If it's only available for Chrome, it is possible that the features they need are not available elsewhere.

We used the same logic back when sites were IE4-only due to things like ActiveX, right?

But the web site still works in other browsers, doesn't it?

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#125

Post by selectnull » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:23 PM UTC

gdulli wrote: post #122

Spearchucker wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Gmail faster than Outlook? I've used both for as long as they've existed, and both for work and personal use, and don't see where or how Gmail is faster. Not going to bother with the more powerful comment. This being HN and all I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're simply not familiar enough with Outlook, rather than trolling.

Maybe Gmail can be fast when you have a small inbox and a low-latency internet connection. I don't remember complaining about the performance early on. But now it takes 3-10 seconds to switch to a label.

I just did a very adhoc test, I've switched to a label with 17000+ threads in it.

It took exactly 5 keystrokes:

* gl (go to label, focues cursor in the search input)

* re (the label is called reports, it autocompleted after re)

* enter

I got results within 1 to 2 sec, along with typing. I'd call that satisfactory.

edit: I'm on 10MB ADSL and I wouldn't describe it as low latency; it's ok, but nothing fancy about it.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#126

Post by gruseom » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:23 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #97

gdulli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very specious to claim that's why someone would disagree with you, but I didn't have an opinion about Google Apps at first. It was only after spending a year using it and learning its differences and limitations that I thought it was inferior. As a software developer for 15+ years, learning new applications is not a difficult thing.

Fair enough. This is how I reason to that particular statement. My observation is that the judgment of 'superior' or 'inferior' requires a standard. In the absence of an unbiased exemplar, the first exposure and use becomes the 'default' standard. Further, that exposure tunes the work flow to minimize 'pain' which creates a pattern of behavior that achieves an objective at reduced pain (a trained workflow). On the ex…

I agree with you and have often thought that this dynamic drives programmer psychology as well. It explains a lot about, e.g., programming language adoption, that is puzzling otherwise.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#127

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:23 PM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #63

oftenwrong wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Using a native rich application is always going to be superior to building a web app on top of a browser. Always? You think that will be true 20 years from now?

People forget that you used to boot your PC into a game disk to play a game. When people started playing games in Windows (full-screen), people like the grandparent poster would RAIL that booting to a game disk would always be superior to building a game on top of Windows.

Honestly, I'm always surprised that games can even run on top of windows and all its accouterments: anti-virus, indexing, random services, etc. I'm assuming there's some API in windows that lets games tell Windows to chill while the game is running.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#128

Post by hnal943 » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:24 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #35

actionscripted wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried it? You select N rows, it then says Insert > N Rows Above and Insert > N Rows Below. I've never had any problems inserting rows, but perhaps I'm not using the product the way others do.

Yes, evidently I have. The idea of selecting existing content in order to get the option to add space for new content is very, very odd. Did you really discover how to do this without looking it up?

Honestly, it never occurred to me to do it any other way.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#129

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:27 PM UTC

gdulli wrote: post #24

I'm at my first company that uses Google apps and it's been a bad experience. There's so much about email and calendaring that Outlook/Exchange got right that it's hard to be without it after taking it for granted. Using a native rich application is always going to be superior to building a web app on top of a browser. Once you're used to real applications, Gmail and the other apps aren't suitable for anything more t…

> I'd prefer that any money my company might be saving be deducted from my paycheck if it would mean they'd get off of Google apps.

Sysadmin here. How much are you willing to pay? I'll need at least 2 domain servers, exchange server, backup server/device/nas/tapes, etc to give you a stable and recoverable environment. I'll need an air conditioned server room/closet as well and a decent UPS. We'll need to pay for offsite data storage as well. How many people? We'll need CALs for each user. Licensing even for a trivial environment is easily 5 figures. Not to mention my salary.

I guess you could go with some shitty MSP and small business server, but not if you actually value your company, uptimes, and data.

Cloud services aren't big because they're good. They're big because they're cheaper than guys like me and all the stuff we work with. Your boss understands this. He's expecting you to deal with it.

Re: New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

#130

Post by gdulli » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 8:36 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #97

gdulli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very specious to claim that's why someone would disagree with you, but I didn't have an opinion about Google Apps at first. It was only after spending a year using it and learning its differences and limitations that I thought it was inferior. As a software developer for 15+ years, learning new applications is not a difficult thing.

Fair enough. This is how I reason to that particular statement. My observation is that the judgment of 'superior' or 'inferior' requires a standard. In the absence of an unbiased exemplar, the first exposure and use becomes the 'default' standard. Further, that exposure tunes the work flow to minimize 'pain' which creates a pattern of behavior that achieves an objective at reduced pain (a trained workflow). On the ex…

Sure, people, including myself, do find the familiar appealing. But you can't extrapolate that to assume that any/most preference for existing standards is based on that instead of an actual understanding of which standard one prefers.

It would be equally wrong and cynical for me to discount opinions for imagined reasons like, people who fit a younger or tech-friendly profile latch on to new technologies for the sake of being cutting edge, or that people in an industry that benefits from adoption of web apps would be biased towards Google apps. (Though the temptation exists.)