5 ms·

Anyone want to suggest alternates? What's the "whip it up in a few hours" for "power users" today?

by mwexler 7y ago

hiccuphippo 7y ago
Google forms + spreadsheet
- tathougies 7y ago
  Oh come on. Access is way better than both these things. So much easier to work with too.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  Access is the "too much for Excel, not enough for an RDBMS" solution. If it's too much for Excel, it's way too much for Google Spreadsheets, which is far behind Excel in functionality.
  - deckar01 7y ago
    My organization recently adopted Office 365. One of the new apps was "PowerApps", a web-based GUI app builder. I popped open an example app inspected a button and, to my horror, I found the program logic was Excel syntax one-liners. When I checked the data binding for the app, it pointed to an XLSX spreadsheet on OneDrive. Time is a flat circle...
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      With 64-bit Excel capable of working with up to 4GB files, it sometimes feels like Excel itself ate/replaced Access for certain classes of business and shadow IT use.
      - intended 7y ago
        Yup. Power BI reinforced that impression.
      - dr-detroit 7y ago
        Only 20 minutes to do a pivot table who needs practical skills when you have MS Office installed and the misplaced trust of your company?
noen 7y ago
Microsoft PowerApps is basically the current replacement, or Visual Studio Lightswitch which was discontinued a few years ago
dr-detroit 7y ago
Don't run things on an unmanaged box on the floor in your office anymore. No more "My S.Q.L." no more flat file DBs saved in CIFS. If you have to ask these questions you're not the power user whipping up production code in a few hours with no framework or managed service you feel like you should still be.
- mwexler 7y ago
  Hmm... this is the classic worst case, sure. But there are lots of value for a local small charity to have a simple database to manage work schedules for volunteers. So, again, given a somewhat power user who is not a coder, how should they "whip up" a simple database app?

Anyone want to suggest alternates? What's the "whip it up in a few hours" for "power users" today?

hiccuphippo 7y ago

Google forms + spreadsheet

tathougies 7y ago
Oh come on. Access is way better than both these things. So much easier to work with too.
Analemma_ 7y ago
Access is the "too much for Excel, not enough for an RDBMS" solution. If it's too much for Excel, it's way too much for Google Spreadsheets, which is far behind Excel in functionality.
- deckar01 7y ago
  My organization recently adopted Office 365. One of the new apps was "PowerApps", a web-based GUI app builder. I popped open an example app inspected a button and, to my horror, I found the program logic was Excel syntax one-liners. When I checked the data binding for the app, it pointed to an XLSX spreadsheet on OneDrive. Time is a flat circle...
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    With 64-bit Excel capable of working with up to 4GB files, it sometimes feels like Excel itself ate/replaced Access for certain classes of business and shadow IT use.
    - intended 7y ago
      Yup. Power BI reinforced that impression.
    - dr-detroit 7y ago
      Only 20 minutes to do a pivot table who needs practical skills when you have MS Office installed and the misplaced trust of your company?

noen 7y ago

Microsoft PowerApps is basically the current replacement, or Visual Studio Lightswitch which was discontinued a few years ago

dr-detroit 7y ago

Don't run things on an unmanaged box on the floor in your office anymore. No more "My S.Q.L." no more flat file DBs saved in CIFS. If you have to ask these questions you're not the power user whipping up production code in a few hours with no framework or managed service you feel like you should still be.

mwexler 7y ago
Hmm... this is the classic worst case, sure. But there are lots of value for a local small charity to have a simple database to manage work schedules for volunteers. So, again, given a somewhat power user who is not a coder, how should they "whip up" a simple database app?