It exists already. It's called MS Access.
how many paths to mdb corruption? Let me count the ways.
I wrote Access apps in college for cash to doctors and small business and I still have no love for the tool.
The world needs a better spreadsheet
81–90 of 98 posts
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#82how do people get a "hey HN" welcome line up on their site so quickly? This was posted here less than 2 hours ago. Do people really monitor incoming referrals hourly?
I think most folks do it automatically, e.g.
Hey { referer }, ...
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#83I'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…
But why not word processors or presentation software (PowerPoint)? How about Photoshop? That's pretty big.
Edit: oh, you're not computing something so much as you're using shrink wrapped software to build documents, presentations, or manipulate images. So, not quite the same.
As for programming languages, I disagree. You don't go from only knowing say Python, PHP and Java to being able to use Haskell in a few hours. There's a substantial learning curve in being able to use a sufficiently different programming language. And no, "Hello, World" or typing in a few simple commands from a tutorial don't count.
Do you suppose the a C programmer is just going to be building a meaningful Smalltalk or Lisp program after a couple of hours? Or that a Javascript programmer is going to be whipping up C++ applications in that amount of time?
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#84Eons 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…
There was something there. What you say is definitely true. When I made Notes apps though, there was always some scripting involved in terms of LotusScript for the Notes client, or Javascript for the browser. There was a Java API as well in the late 90s that some people were using instead of LotusScript. It was a bit more powerful, obviously.
Of course, some people just used the @ formulas.
Anyway, I haven't come across anything that so naturally expressed document workflow with forms and email integration. People complain about Notes email, but it was nice to have it so tightly integrated with the Notes capabilities.
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There is also ses-mode (Simple Emacs Spreadsheet) that started shipping with Emacs since version 22.
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think of spreadsheets as like q-tips. Apparently the one thing that the manufacturers of q-tips tell you not to do is to stick them in your orifices. Yet the number one actual use of q-tips is people cleaning gunk from their ears. People build the most insane, unmaintainable, insecure messes using spreadsheets - because they can.
And you can FAST. What else is there for quick and dirty stuff????
iPython or Jupyter Notebooks, where you can whip up R, Julia, or other code in your browser, interspersed with markdown, charts and formulas.
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#87I'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…
But why not word processors or presentation software (PowerPoint)? How about Photoshop? That's pretty big. Edit: oh, you're not computing something so much as you're using shrink wrapped software to build documents, presentations, or manipulate images. So, not quite the same. As for programming languages, I disagree. You don't go from only knowing say Python, PHP and Java to being able to use Haskell in a few hours.…
I've seen orgs run on Excel spreadsheets: one electric utility I worked for described their load in one massive Excel sheet. Where I think this analogy falls apart is that so many spreadsheets come to depend on macros (which my experience did, via ODBC), which makes them a meld between 2 and 3. I've definitely written systems at level 2 -- at the same company -- that have had way more ROI than the spreadsheet based system that was previously employed, but the spreadsheet could have employed macros to do the same thing.
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#88Spreadsheets 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…
Sounds like someone should come in and turn that into a database that feeds excel.
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#89Airtable is a better spreadsheet imho.
+1 on Airtable, it's the only app I have used in the past 5 years that fits great into workflows and allows me to peer into and sort the data based on the task / view I need.
Re: The world needs a better spreadsheet
#90how do people get a "hey HN" welcome line up on their site so quickly? This was posted here less than 2 hours ago. Do people really monitor incoming referrals hourly?
There must be an app to notify you of HN/Reddit/Tweets that mention your domain?