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The world needs a better spreadsheet

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Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet

#71

Post by orionblastar »

richardboegli wrote: post #21

It exists already. It's called MS Access.

I think you mean MS SQL Server, it is faster and has more features than Access.

Access is good to prototype a database and use GUI/UX controls to make forms and other stuff. It is good for small projects, but once you need to upscale you need to go to SQL Server. I did this in the late 1990s and early 2000s migrated databases from Excel and Access to SQL Server.

On Linux, people use MySQL or PostgreSQL for the same reason and upgrade from SQLlite3 etc.

Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet

#73

Post by meredydd »

mmonihan wrote: post #16
chowes wrote: post #11

I agree with this in premise, and had a very similar idea with a friend earlier this year - that many of the business apps out there are really just CRUD apps. The main piece of feedback that we got when pitching this idea was that you're going to end up as a master-of-none. Yes, we could give you the tools to set up Customer, Ticket, etc. objects. But in order to win over Zendesk, you're going to need all of the fea…

OP. This is an idea I've been going back and forth on for a while. I have checked out Quickbase, Airtable, Ragic, etc. What I've noticed is that I always want the ability to go to code when I need to. My clients are all on Rails apps today, and I'm happy with rails as a dev solution. And, I don't want to give up that flexibility. However, there are use cases where I want to just use a form builder UI to manage a data…

I posted upthread already, but I would really love to know what you think of Anvil (https://anvil.works).

We're aiming squarely at your use case: more than just a form builder; less fuss than fighting Heroku for four hours.

Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet

#74

Post by snarf21 »

niftich wrote: post #17

Spreadsheets are the poor man's data processing pipeline; they ship with a wealth of numeric and data munging functions and give you an easy-to-understand visual representation of your datastore. You can use them to crunch numbers and graph, but also to implement fairly complex business logic, and they accomplish this within the confines of an application you probably have already bought anyway. They're the epitome o…

I agree. The problem is also that most people who are running SMB aren't experts at growing their data model. Over time, the owner needs new objects (rows, columns, sheets, etc.) and new things that need calculated and tracked BUT they also need to associate these new things to the old things. They are not going to be able to renormalize the data model (they don't know they have). They make new sheets or Excel files and do the best they can. It is flexible and can do whatever they want but that doesn't make it more efficient. I don't think that most of these people need new or custom software. They need someone to come in once a year and help them re-optimize their processes against the new reality. Excel might be enough but there has to be an investment in making that an efficient tool.

Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet

#75

Post by meredydd »

I'm seeing a lot of hate for spreadsheets here.

First, to state the obvious: in the time your least-favourite Excel sheet took to grow from simple time-saver to sprawling Cthuloid monster, it has probably saved multiple person-years of effort. You could spend the next six months rebuilding it all "properly", and it's still comically positive ROI.

Spreadsheets are also a unique, top-level category in computing as a whole. By my count, there have only ever been three schemes of interaction with computers (with any significant adoption):

1. Shrink-wrap. Use the software you've been given. Read the manual; that's what it does, no more.

2. Programming language. It's text, it's got syntax, it's got the same basic constructs as any other programming language. You know they're all the same, because once you know a few languages, you can start using a new one in an hour or two.

3. Spreadsheets. Visual interaction, scaling smoothly from "simple calculator" to "this is the backbone of our whole business".

Spreadsheets really are that fundamental a discovery in the field of computing. Give them some love.

Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet

#76

Post by peatmoss »

gglitch wrote: post #48
losteverything wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can FAST. What else is there for quick and dirty stuff????

Emacs

I like to use org-tables for my spreadsheets:-D

I'm joking... mostly. That said, I really have used elisp functions on an org-tbl in anger before.

Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet

#77

Post by hkmurakami »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #13
beachy wrote: post #3

Eons ago, I worked for Lotus Software (way before they belonged to IBM) on an exiting new product - their flagship Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet product, in those days the preeminent spreadsheet offering in the world, ported to the IBM mainframe. I travelled around Europe as we sold this to large corporations who wanted the power of the spreadsheet, but multipled by a gazillion times and made multi-user. Almost every custo…

I like that you're bringing up Lotus, but I was thinking of a different product: Notes. It's from another digital software age and from experience, hard not to think of the applications created with it as archaic monstrosities, yet there was something there. In many ways it was what the OP is talking about: a networked formbuilder that allowed for people with technical skills roughly equivalent to that of an Excel su…

I used Notes as recently as 2010 at a mega Corp. Another friend was using it in 2013 at a professional services firm.

Those apps were simultaneously powerful and broken. The sheer number of apps the company had was staggering. "There's an (notes) app for that", only 20 years prior.

Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet

#78

Post by meredydd »

meredydd wrote: post #75

I'm seeing a lot of hate for spreadsheets here. First, to state the obvious: in the time your least-favourite Excel sheet took to grow from simple time-saver to sprawling Cthuloid monster, it has probably saved multiple person-years of effort . You could spend the next six months rebuilding it all "properly", and it's still comically positive ROI. Spreadsheets are also a unique, top-level category in computing as a w…

Aside: This is also why the OP's wishes for "a better spreadsheet" so often run into trouble. If you take a spreadsheet and naively "add more power" with a programming language, you're producing an abrupt transition from mode #3 to mode #2. This spooks the user almost as much as learning to code from scratch - and for the same reasons.

I don't have an answer for this. For https://anvil.works we deliberately avoided this pitfall by never pretending to be a spreadsheet (or, for that matter, shrinkwrap, like Salesforce does). We make you write code from step 1, and get comfy with it, because if you started in any other paradigm it would be too hard to switch. And if you don't write code, you'll never get much advantage over just using Access.

Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet

#79

Post by iamwil »

tmaly wrote: post #40
mmonihan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP. I was actually thinking something similar. Do you mean the ability to send out emails with app data rather than code and orchestrate them yourself?

I was thinking more on the processing of incoming emails, ones with attachments or routing. I worked years ago on an enterprise product that did this, but it was integrated with large printer.

What data was being sent back and forth? Why did you need to process the attachments?
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