Kudos for putting a link to basic info at the top of your post. I wish everyone did that (just make it part of your blog template).
Eve Version 0
161–170 of 195 posts
Re: Eve Version 0
#162The change of focus is perhaps hard to understand without more context. Basically, there are two really different modes of programming: Most of what we see on HN is about building applications, servers, websites etc. Big, monolithic things that take weeks to years and are deployed to somewhere else and used by lots of people. Most programming tools are built for this kind of work, where the time between writing the c…
This is a really helpful perspective. For example, I've started referring to myself as a "user" of Python rather than a programmer.
Care to explain a bit your choice of word ? Funny how I often heard about the user / programmer dichotomy. Always just felt like a user in the know.
Re: Eve Version 0
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is, it's easy to say something is hard. Programming is definitely hard! The question is: Is it hard essentially, or is it hard accidentally? That is, can you remove unnecessary complexity from programming and suddenly it'll become easy? That was the proposition behind first LightTable, and then Eve as originally conceived. But neither of them really found a satisfying answer, a way to say "hey, for making y…
In its essence programming is transforming data (and code is data too). Everything else is incidental. But if I think of the things I do in my day-to-day work as a software developer it is 99% logistics (getting data in the right place and in the right form) and 1% related to actual meaningful transformation. If my understanding is correct (I only had a cursory glance) eve attacks this problem from the promising angl…
> But if I think of the things I do in my day-to-day work as a software developer it is 99% logistics (getting data in the right place and in the right form) and 1% related to actual meaningful transformation. If my understanding is correct (I only had a cursory glance) eve attacks this problem from the promising angle by making all data available in a ready-to-query database.
Reminds me of the old:
"It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than 10 functions on 10 data structures." —Alan Perlis
Re: Eve Version 0
#164The change of focus is perhaps hard to understand without more context. Basically, there are two really different modes of programming: Most of what we see on HN is about building applications, servers, websites etc. Big, monolithic things that take weeks to years and are deployed to somewhere else and used by lots of people. Most programming tools are built for this kind of work, where the time between writing the c…
That is a much better and saner explanation than these "revolutionizing programming"-grandiosity talks.
Eve will always tend to be missunderstood at Hackernews or Reddit. It simply is not aimed at professional developers and intended to build production systems.
Re: Eve Version 0
#165At a glance, it reminds me of what MS Access was (is?)... or could have been if MS hadn't ignored it to death. So many people (myself included) were/are incredibly empowered by that program, and I still have a fond place in my heart for Access, as it was my bridge from Excel macros to "real programming". Hopefully Eve doesn't get DabbleDB'd... the world really needs a modern MS Access!
I work here, so disclaimer, etc, but we're working on a modern MS Access at Airtable [1] -- it's very similar to DabbleDB.
It's early days both for Eve and for us, but it kinda feels like we're approaching the same problem from different angles. Eve's more focused on the programming experience while we're starting by focusing on the data.
Re: Eve Version 0
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am currently working as an Actuarial Analyst, but I have also worked several years as a programmer. As an analyst the tools I use are excel, access, SAS Enterprise guide and Oracle SQL developer. One of the big problems I face is that we have no good way to abstract away a process and really make it reusable. My general work flow is using SAS to pull data from multiple sources, combine and run the data through some…
Look at my EasyMorph ( http://easymorph.com ). It's a visual replacement for scripted data transformations. People use it to replace SAS and Visual Basic scripting. It also allows creating reusable modules. Contact me at @easymorph.com if it looks interesting to you.
Does this have an API that can be called from .Net?
I'm really liking some of the things Microsoft is doing with Power Query, but I don't like how it is (afaik) only callable from Excel or PowerBI online. I'd like similar capability, but more open, and could be called via scripting, from SQLCLR, etc.
Another big hitch: Microsoft has not published proper API's for manipulating PowerPivot models in Excel, and I don't think they intend to - I've heard one 3rd party has reverse engineered the API's (you can decompile the .Net binaries, but I haven't had the time to look at it yet).
Re: Eve Version 0
#167The change of focus is perhaps hard to understand without more context. Basically, there are two really different modes of programming: Most of what we see on HN is about building applications, servers, websites etc. Big, monolithic things that take weeks to years and are deployed to somewhere else and used by lots of people. Most programming tools are built for this kind of work, where the time between writing the c…
I am currently working as an Actuarial Analyst, but I have also worked several years as a programmer. As an analyst the tools I use are excel, access, SAS Enterprise guide and Oracle SQL developer. One of the big problems I face is that we have no good way to abstract away a process and really make it reusable. My general work flow is using SAS to pull data from multiple sources, combine and run the data through some…
@rgoddard - May be a bit overkill but check out Immuta (www.immuta.com). Its a data platform, built for data scientists, that enables you to query across many disparate sets of data using familiar patterns such as SQL, file system, etc. Our SQL interface allows you to hook to Excel, Tableau, Pentaho...so you could write your abstracted logic and connect to many data sources or mashed up analytic results. contact me at matt@immuta.com if you're interested after reading through the site.
Re: Eve Version 0
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've known many Excel power users who are technically minded and experts in their domains, but nevertheless are not programmers. (Edit: obviously they're programmers in the sense that they make the computer compute things, but not via a general-purpose language.) They have no interest in learning Python or JavaScript or even VBA—it doesn't fit with how they like to think. Instead, they lay out complex calculations in…
The only thing a super complex formula is missing is the notion of a for loop. In lieu of that, I used to pull a column down as many times as the loop needed to run. Then I discovered macros, then I discovered javascript.
> Then I discovered macros, then I discovered javascript.
Is the javascript comment somehow related to Excel, or had you moved beyond Excel at that point?
Re: Eve Version 0
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excel is a very powerful tool, but it reaches a utility plateau very quickly when you start going outside its intended purpose of being a spreadsheet application. You're correct that a power-user can do pretty much anything in Excel, but when you start talking about actual database operations (like Join), state, and UI, then you're at the point where the tool is working against you.
I'm not sure what you mean by state and UI, but Excel definitely has a join-like functionality in the form of vlookup function. https://support.office.com/en-in/article/VLOOKUP-function-0b...
Now try doing a VLookup using more than one column.
Artificial limitations like this are one reason people rightfully hate Microsoft.
Re: Eve Version 0
#170At a glance, it reminds me of what MS Access was (is?)... or could have been if MS hadn't ignored it to death. So many people (myself included) were/are incredibly empowered by that program, and I still have a fond place in my heart for Access, as it was my bridge from Excel macros to "real programming". Hopefully Eve doesn't get DabbleDB'd... the world really needs a modern MS Access!
I work here, so disclaimer, etc, but we're working on a modern MS Access at Airtable [1] -- it's very similar to DabbleDB. It's early days both for Eve and for us, but it kinda feels like we're approaching the same problem from different angles. Eve's more focused on the programming experience while we're starting by focusing on the data. [1] http://airtable.com
This looks quite interesting. Do you have plans for a pricing model to support building a public website on top of it? Also, will it only be (your) cloud based?