Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to use a Google Spreadsheet as a database

api.blockspring.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–77 of 77 posts

Re: How to use a Google Spreadsheet as a database

#71

Post by ecesena »

chunkiestbacon wrote: post #69
ecesena wrote: post #29

I'm a big fan of spreadsheets instead of db -- it has it's limitations of course, but works great for apps with a few thousand read-only records (items/products or even just text captions). I built HasGluten [1, 2] with react + google spreadsheet, hosted on github for free, you get a cheap, scalable, geo-distributed software stack, with simple interfaces to maintain both code (GitHub Pages) and data (Google Sheets —…

Very cool. I sent you a pull request.

Awesome! Today is a bit busy, but I'll have a look at it!

Re: How to use a Google Spreadsheet as a database

#72

Post by ecesena »

Ciantic wrote: post #67
ecesena wrote: post #29

I'm a big fan of spreadsheets instead of db -- it has it's limitations of course, but works great for apps with a few thousand read-only records (items/products or even just text captions). I built HasGluten [1, 2] with react + google spreadsheet, hosted on github for free, you get a cheap, scalable, geo-distributed software stack, with simple interfaces to maintain both code (GitHub Pages) and data (Google Sheets —…

Your HasGluten is interesting. You probably should try to do international free wiki-like open database of all foods with EAN codes. Maybe Fitbit and other vendors could chip in to provide food details. I would love to scan all my food EAN codes and see in the computer what I have in my refrigator in calories, protein etc. P.S. Google spreadsheet is not enough for database of all the world's food

Definitely we'd need a db for that :)

Re: How to use a Google Spreadsheet as a database

#73

Post by jlouvel »

APISpark (PaaS for APIs) is capable of creating a REST API (JSON/YAML/XML formats) on top of a Google Spreadsheet, using it as a database: http://restlet.com/technical-resources/apispark/tutorials/tu...

In the latest version, it comes with a server-side API cache to prevent GSheet latency and availability issues.

Note: I'm the founder of APISpark

Re: How to use a Google Spreadsheet as a database

#75

Post by eddyparkinson »

mooreds wrote: post #2

I beat my head on APIs from Google spreadsheets, so good on ya! How does blockspring deal with Google Spreadsheet availability issues? I remember the spreadsheet not always being available.

availability: you need a retry. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22099780/unable-to-comple...

Re: How to use a Google Spreadsheet as a database

#76

Post by mavhc »

mavhc wrote: post #10

Where's the free, web based, easy to use database, the web version of MS Access?

Thanks for everyone's replies, I found airtable to be nice and simple for people who want to use a database, fieldbookapp a bit higher end, and APEX too confusing.

However I still can't see how to do the "getting started with SQL" type stuff, for people who don't want to use the command line for everything, but still want to use SQL in not too complex ways, maybe a more friendly version of phpmyadmin (and friends).

Re: How to use a Google Spreadsheet as a database

#77

Post by jasoncrawford »

mavhc wrote: post #76
mavhc wrote: post #10

Where's the free, web based, easy to use database, the web version of MS Access?

Thanks for everyone's replies, I found airtable to be nice and simple for people who want to use a database, fieldbookapp a bit higher end, and APEX too confusing. However I still can't see how to do the "getting started with SQL" type stuff, for people who don't want to use the command line for everything, but still want to use SQL in not too complex ways, maybe a more friendly version of phpmyadmin (and friends).

Ping me at jason@fieldbookapp.com, would love to hear more about what exactly you're looking for; maybe I can help or provide suggestions. Thanks!
Post reply on HN