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Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

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Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#91

Post by [deleted] »

eigen wrote: post #83
maliker wrote: post #8

I liked the way Apple did it in their Numbers clone of Excel - you can have multiple grids on a single page. It makes it a lot easier to have related data on the same page without fiddling with the row/column sizes to suite multiple types of data.

Many things that Numbers seems to me to be better than Excel from a formatting perspective: * Freeze header rows & columns. * Naming header rows & columns. * Graphs that don't overlap the sheet. Things that I find Excel does better than Numbers from a data perspective: * Data validation * Large tables * Formula Error checking

[deleted]

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#92

Post by breck »

maliker wrote: post #8

I liked the way Apple did it in their Numbers clone of Excel - you can have multiple grids on a single page. It makes it a lot easier to have related data on the same page without fiddling with the row/column sizes to suite multiple types of data.

Same thought. That made it something to watch.

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#93

Post by antupis »

rwhaling wrote: post #71

I've been thinking about this a ton lately - I think the holy grail is something that extends the spreadsheet UX with the capability to address much larger data sets, roughly equivalent in power to a Jupyter notebook. This probably means constraining some of the totally free-form data entry and imposing some kind of discipline onto columns? As well as some way to intuitively group together groups of cell-level formul…

I think holy grail is ai-assisted system where you can ask by plain English queries. Something like Wolfram alpha + gtp-3 + erp.

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#94

Post by woah »

kpierce wrote: post #85

Trillions of decisions have been made off a tool that has poor error handling and data consistency issues. Blame is not entirely on either the user or the software, but the tool is too trusted without validation. [Study that was at the core for Europe's austerity and European debt crisis contained excel errors when fixed showed the inverse of original hypothesis.]( https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-t…

I think that more precision over application of formulas would solve a lot. Arrays are mapped over by copying the code for each array element by dragging it across a row of cells, and the arguments to the formula are automatically mutated based on where the code is dragged to. This can be error prone.

More concrete definitions of where a formula should apply would be good, for example, leave the formula cell in one place and specify that one argument should come from this range of cells and the other from this range of cells, and the output should be mapped to this range.

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#95

Post by thrtythreeforty »

kpierce wrote: post #85

Trillions of decisions have been made off a tool that has poor error handling and data consistency issues. Blame is not entirely on either the user or the software, but the tool is too trusted without validation. [Study that was at the core for Europe's austerity and European debt crisis contained excel errors when fixed showed the inverse of original hypothesis.]( https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-t…

Airtable really ought to be killing Excel, but the SaaS model combined with a stupidly low artificial row count limit (over 50000 rows is listed as "contact us for pricing") means that it will never achieve penetration into weird and wonderful use cases like Excel has.

Like, my default is to throw a dataset I'm hacking on into an SQL database so I can actually query the thing. But no I don't want to upload my 400MB log file. I'll just use grep, or build a CSV and deal with Excel filtering.

Airtable should be awesome at reducing the cost of database-ifying these random datasets to zero. But the sales constraints put it in this niche where it's not the default tool of choice.

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#96

Post by [deleted] »

kpierce wrote: post #85

Trillions of decisions have been made off a tool that has poor error handling and data consistency issues. Blame is not entirely on either the user or the software, but the tool is too trusted without validation. [Study that was at the core for Europe's austerity and European debt crisis contained excel errors when fixed showed the inverse of original hypothesis.]( https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-t…

[deleted]

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#97

Post by oehpr »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #95
kpierce wrote: post #85

Trillions of decisions have been made off a tool that has poor error handling and data consistency issues. Blame is not entirely on either the user or the software, but the tool is too trusted without validation. [Study that was at the core for Europe's austerity and European debt crisis contained excel errors when fixed showed the inverse of original hypothesis.]( https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-t…

Airtable really ought to be killing Excel, but the SaaS model combined with a stupidly low artificial row count limit (over 50000 rows is listed as "contact us for pricing") means that it will never achieve penetration into weird and wonderful use cases like Excel has. Like, my default is to throw a dataset I'm hacking on into an SQL database so I can actually query the thing. But no I don't want to upload my 400MB l…

100%

I found what Airtable is doing to be deeply attractive. But their costs and their lock in and their pricing model and it's just...

UGH.

Microsoft Access was a good idea with a terrible implementation.

There HAS to be a unfilled niche here.

nocodb looks to be the best answer so far? Because it ties to a backend postgres database, it can be used along side bespoke applications. It still needs development though. I'm watching it like a hawk.

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#98

Post by TAForObvReasons »

oehpr wrote: post #97
thrtythreeforty wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airtable really ought to be killing Excel, but the SaaS model combined with a stupidly low artificial row count limit (over 50000 rows is listed as "contact us for pricing") means that it will never achieve penetration into weird and wonderful use cases like Excel has. Like, my default is to throw a dataset I'm hacking on into an SQL database so I can actually query the thing. But no I don't want to upload my 400MB l…

100% I found what Airtable is doing to be deeply attractive. But their costs and their lock in and their pricing model and it's just... UGH. Microsoft Access was a good idea with a terrible implementation. There HAS to be a unfilled niche here. nocodb looks to be the best answer so far? Because it ties to a backend postgres database, it can be used along side bespoke applications. It still needs development though. I…

VC-funded SaaS wiped out any real possibility of a sane business model for a product in this space.

Re: Excel 2.0 – Is there a better visual data model than a grid of cells?

#100

Post by aidos »

eigen wrote: post #83
maliker wrote: post #8

I liked the way Apple did it in their Numbers clone of Excel - you can have multiple grids on a single page. It makes it a lot easier to have related data on the same page without fiddling with the row/column sizes to suite multiple types of data.

Many things that Numbers seems to me to be better than Excel from a formatting perspective: * Freeze header rows & columns. * Naming header rows & columns. * Graphs that don't overlap the sheet. Things that I find Excel does better than Numbers from a data perspective: * Data validation * Large tables * Formula Error checking

Exporting all sheets as individual csvs in one go…

Recently I’ve just been using numbers because it’s there on the odd occasions I need to access an xslx file and, while everything is a little different, it’s just better.

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