I agree with a lot of the points raised here. I think many of the problems with spreadsheets are due to the software rather than the users. As mentioned in the article, its hard to slowly iterate from a small manageable spreadsheet to an larger software solution. For example, Excel would be a lot more usable and maintainable for me if there was a way to make a special "data sheet" in which data types are forced to be…
I agree with a lot of the points raised here. I think many of the problems with spreadsheets are due to the software rather than the users. As mentioned in the article, its hard to slowly iterate from a small manageable spreadsheet to an larger software solution. For example, Excel would be a lot more usable and maintainable for me if there was a way to make a special "data sheet" in which data types are forced to be…
I've had similar thoughts in the past. Databases are very machine-friendly, but too static and inflexible to match the usability of spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are extremely user-friendly, but too inconsistent and unconstrained to be efficient for programmatic access. It seems like there should be a way to combine the two. Maybe a minimal set of optional constraints (like a separation between data and code) like you p…
Honestly, what's missing is a GUI builder for Postgres that non-programmers can use.
Others have mentioned Filemaker and Access, and I think that's exactly right - non-programmers can understand datatypes, that's not the issue. The issue is a UI they can use and (more importantly) iterate on themselves.
One of the major strengths of spreadsheets is "touchability" - your stuff is right there. Psql is the opposite - nothing is visible without the right incantation, and non-programmers can't do much about that.
We need a spreadsheet format that's more conducive to the professional programmer workflow. Parsing them is actually very complex. You just have to hope your library can handle everything in excel. If you're a cli native I'm not really sure what you do. Spreadsheets don't play very will with source control. If the underlying format was text and every cell and formula was on a new line it would work out ok. As it is n…
> We need a spreadsheet format that's more conducive to the professional programmer workflow.
Spreadsheets versus programmers is a war that can be much more peaceful. In my work, I have found that, especially in data science, the spreadsheet user and the programmers are often trying to accomplish similar tasks, but the “language barrier” between them leads to much more fragmented workflows. I also think this article does a good job of identifying spreadsheets as a low-code programming language — spreadsheets…
What is especially ironic is that excel is not so straighforward to use in my experience. If you want to do something in excel that you don't know how to do, you are best off finding a search engine and looking for a 5 minute article that explains everything. Now, programming is seen as toohard for some reason, but if you were to look for how to do that exact same merge or join or barplot or whatever in, say, python or R, I bet it would be another 5 minute article no longer than the excel one. It begs the question, why use excel at all when the learning curve isn't any easier than learning a few functions in python or R? The answer in my opinion is only that its entrenched and familiar, and you have entire companies basing everything on their excel spreadsheets since 1995 because they were told then by advertisers that this is how business should be done on computers. And now we have generations of accountants and business majors going through undergrad and spending braincells and tuition dollars for coursework on the shitware that is excel, rather than learning something like R or python that they could use to create an infinite number of innovative or creative things beyond just parsing a spreadsheet.
So Alan Kay was right about live coding, at least for the average person, but he was wrong about what kind of software. That or SmallTalk with spreadsheets would be the killer low-code app. Lotus Notes also made use of @ formulas for it's forms, and then there was Hyper Card for easily building GUIs.
Clippy: I see you're trying to create a database. Would you like to use Access instead? I'm not sure this is really a problem Microsoft can solve as an Excel feature. I think the better approach would be for MS to identify common ways in which people misuse spreadsheets and create new tools to accommodate those use cases. With how commonly Excel is misused as a database, I think there's a market for an alternative to…
Excel can connect to a Jet DB, IIRC. If it can connect, it could probably also recognize common patterns and create some common Jet/Access structure to replicate the Excel structure on the fly. Basically, transparently use Access-like structure as the original source. Just thinking off the top of my head. But... if that would be useful/doable, they may have already done it.
Excel is like IE6 - so entrenched that it will take a decade to disrupt. Why innovate when there's no market need?
I agree with a lot of the points raised here. I think many of the problems with spreadsheets are due to the software rather than the users. As mentioned in the article, its hard to slowly iterate from a small manageable spreadsheet to an larger software solution. For example, Excel would be a lot more usable and maintainable for me if there was a way to make a special "data sheet" in which data types are forced to be…
I've had similar thoughts in the past. Databases are very machine-friendly, but too static and inflexible to match the usability of spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are extremely user-friendly, but too inconsistent and unconstrained to be efficient for programmatic access. It seems like there should be a way to combine the two. Maybe a minimal set of optional constraints (like a separation between data and code) like you p…
I've read that nocodb is aiming to solve the issue that you mentioned
I agree with this one. People who don't know how to code can easily use spreadsheets in your everyday life. For example, to calculate your income and expenses. To track and monitor your finances.
My problem with this is that if you can learn to use excel you can certainly learn to code. It's no harder. A given article for a given task in either is going to be like a 5 minute read.
=SUM(A1:A10) is no easier to do than sum(data$column). Why are we educating generations of excel users instead of generations of R and python users in undergraduate business programs? It seems so wasteful of young educated talent to learn how to do the same thing with such limited software, if its no harder to learn a general purpose software like python or R and do that same thing plus infinite more things.
I've had similar thoughts in the past. Databases are very machine-friendly, but too static and inflexible to match the usability of spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are extremely user-friendly, but too inconsistent and unconstrained to be efficient for programmatic access. It seems like there should be a way to combine the two. Maybe a minimal set of optional constraints (like a separation between data and code) like you p…
Isn't this what FileMaker Pro is all about?
Yep! I personally like Airtable as well, slightly better UX (but expensive for large teams)
I agree with a lot of the points raised here. I think many of the problems with spreadsheets are due to the software rather than the users. As mentioned in the article, its hard to slowly iterate from a small manageable spreadsheet to an larger software solution. For example, Excel would be a lot more usable and maintainable for me if there was a way to make a special "data sheet" in which data types are forced to be…
There is so much excel voodoo involved to do things with that software. I still believe that the learning curve of excel is no harder than the learning curve of doing the same exact thing in R or python, plus you'd end up having the data and the formulas in different places which brings loads of benefits (for instance, git). People are just familiar with excel because thats what they used to make a chart in science c…
I dunno, any programming seems a different beast than a spreadsheet tool.
For python, just think of installing it or setting up virtual environments.
Like the original article says, “spreadsheets are the original low code”