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I still cannot wrap my head around why so many folks want to use such applications in a web browser. For me, web browser applications never reach the responsiv

I still cannot wrap my head around why so many folks want to use such applications in a web browser. For me, web browser applications never reach the responsiveness and ease of use of well crafted desktop applications written in any decent systems programming language or even interpreted languages (not speaking of Javascript). Maybe I am getting old, but having the browser as a platform for programs is huge setback for many criteria that I personally value. For example, as a free Excel alternative, I fall back to Gnumeric (http://www.gnumeric.org/ http://www.gnumeric.org/) from time to time.

MattGaiser 6y ago
> well crafted desktop applications written in any decent systems programming language or even interpreted languages (not speaking of Javascript). These generally cost more money to develop/require ITs permission to be installed/get features slower.
Freak_NL 6y ago
Sharing and collaborative editing. Being able to coordinate some process via a shared spreadsheet in a browser is efficient and resolves all issues of conflicting versions. Think of an overview of who is going to the office on which days this week (useful in times of working from home due to Corona). Responsiveness is not the primary concern here: good enough is fine for most purposes. This is not a replacement for a proper spreadsheet editor (I prefer LibreOffice myself); it's a tool to collaborate on tabular data with a group of people and minimal overhead.
- amcvitty 6y ago
  Interesting to note that cloud storage and realtime collaboration isn’t 100% tied to a browser-based interface though. Even though many existing apps work like that, there are desktop clients for a bunch of cloud-native SaaS (and even though some of those are Electron).
  - creatio 6y ago
    > resolves all issues of conflicting versions. But isn't a problem in the browser, because you are always on the same version.
  - jsmith99 6y ago
    Regular desktop Excel supports multi user collaboration on workbooks saved in onedrive exactly the same as excel online/Google sheets etc do. You can see what other users are working on and their changes are synced instantly. The only annoyance is when one user changes a filter and it changes for everyone.
- frr149 6y ago
  Using HTMl & CSS for your GUI is orthogonal with collaboration. It's just a hack that people accept
pastage 6y ago
Because you never use the same desktop, I myself can use up to 10 different devices, it is always easier to access stuff from a webbrowser. I do agree that the snappiness of Gnumeric is wonderful, and it's easier to do on desktop, nevertheless many desktop apps are worse than web apps.
patchtopic 6y ago
A tabular, instantly updating set of information is one I'm frequently discussing with groups of people online, it is ridiculously handy even with the overhead of a web browser slowing things down, if it's updating live. Of course a secure and easy to set up way to do it without the browser would be great as well.
raziel2p 6y ago
Available everywhere without installing anything, and I don't need to worry about file formats. With Google Drive I also appreciate that I can write custom functions using javascript which I already know, rather than learn some obscure language. I tried gnumeric just now and the crappy looking toolbar and the poor autocomplete experience for formula functions was enough to put me off.
app4soft 6y ago
> For example, as a free Excel alternative, I fall back to Gnumeric (http://www.gnumeric.org/ http://www.gnumeric.org/) from time to time. Gnumeric is useful, but its GUI is very laggy (more laggy than LibreOffice Calc). Sadly, there NO fast & usable Qt-based alternative to Excell for Linux yet. As lightweight spreadsheet app for Linux I use Qt-based mtCellEdit[0], which does not support .xls/.xlsx formats & could not fully replace Excell too. [0] https://github.com/matyler/mtCellEdit https://github.com/matyler/mtCellEdit
- bmn__ 6y ago
  https://calligra.org/sheets/ https://calligra.org/sheets/
  - app4soft 6y ago
    Is there Qt-only (KDE-free) version of Calligra Sheets?
P4wl0w 6y ago
I think it really depends on the scenario: # Scenario 1 You are using one device where all your apps are installed or you have permission to install anything you want. You will find this in smaller companies with BYOD policy. # Scenario 2 You are using a lot of different devices and/or regularly have to work with a new device that is only setup with the basic applications. It is not possible or allowed to just install any app. You will find this in enterprise businesses with a lot of policies about devices and workflows. For #1 a solid desktop app is probably preferable but for #2 (prerequisite is a stable and fast internet connection) you can start working immediately when all necessary apps and data is available online. Also there could be web apps that benefit from a spreadsheet which is more than just a basic grid view.
abrbhat 6y ago
The browser is very accessible and understandable as an environment as compared to different kinds of desktop environments that exist. Sometimes having an imperfect thing which exists is better than a non-existent perfect thing. Sure, a web application will never be as snappier as a native application, but it can be built, deployed and maintained by a much smaller team than what would be required for supporting desktop applications for multiple environments. If it feels 'good enough' to the users, they won't care.
- starfallg 6y ago
  >Sure, a web application will never be as snappier as a native application, but it can be built, deployed and maintained by a much smaller team than what would be required for supporting desktop applications for multiple environments. A webapp has a wide range of operational costs that a native app doesn't. I can't see why a modern webapp would be cheaper to develop as well with similar programming languages. Their advantage comes mainly from the lack of the need to install software, and for the data to be accessible by every device.
asah 6y ago
No installation Multiple tabs/windows Don't leave the browser Works-at-all on multiple platforms incl mobile Deep linking / sharing / bookmarking App freezes are less common (on network access) and easier to manage when they happen - obviously this is anecdotal and not universal.
- dorfsmay 6y ago
  More importantly (for Google sheets): Easy to share No need to backup Cross platform (works on Linux)
  - alpaca128 6y ago
    > No need to backup You trust Google etc. to never ban your account for any reason, or to stay available 100% of the time without outages?
    - fbrchps 6y ago
      You trust your hard drive to never fail during crunch time, or Jane Doe in accounting to not lose the flash drive that gets shared around the office every quarter? I'd take "generally highly available" vs "trusting my local copy" almost all the time. And as for using something like a Git'd Excel document: most people won't do that, and Github can go down, too. Just because Google Drive isn't perfect, doesn't mean it's not better/easier/more user friendly than what has been the standard for years.
      - kevincox 6y ago
        You need to back up your hard drive too. The point is that you always need to back up. Sure, if you pay Google you can probably rely on them. But it is still best to backup anyways.
      - alpaca128 6y ago
        It's not an either-or. My argument was for making backups, not cloud vs. local storage.
cosmodisk 6y ago
Just before I even start,I want to mention that I'm a fan of MS Office and don't really like Google Sheets ( it's like a toy to me). Having written this,I still do believe that there are millions of people out there for whom browser based spreadsheet application is all they really need. Those aren't people doing tens of thousands of rows manipulations from database extracts.Those are the people who'd have a simple file and do simple things with it. I see a lot of consultants working with it: they create UAT stories,share with multiple users on the client side and everybody knows what's going on.
alpaca128 6y ago
I am a big fan and user of keyboard shortcuts, and web apps make using those either weird and inconsistent with what you'd expect, or simply impossible. A user interface without support for keyboard shortcuts is not viable for productive use imho. Web apps built with modern frameworks often can't even be used by Vim plugins in the browser, either because scrolling doesn't work, or the frameworks and scripts do so much black magic in the background that not a single button in the GUI is recognised as clickable element by the Vim plugin. Broken by design. Not to mention all the performance issues and productivity blockers thanks to tracking, no support for right click(and its context menus) etc., instead we get animations which also add input lag to everything because it looks fancy.
t0astbread 6y ago
Why would you use interpreted languages but not JavaScript?
bevenky 6y ago
Well, like it or not it helps a lot with web first exp. and also with collaboration.

MattGaiser 6y ago

> well crafted desktop applications written in any decent systems programming language or even interpreted languages (not speaking of Javascript). These generally cost more money to develop/require ITs permission to be installed/get features slower.

Freak_NL 6y ago

Sharing and collaborative editing. Being able to coordinate some process via a shared spreadsheet in a browser is efficient and resolves all issues of conflicting versions. Think of an overview of who is going to the office on which days this week (useful in times of working from home due to Corona). Responsiveness is not the primary concern here: good enough is fine for most purposes. This is not a replacement for a proper spreadsheet editor (I prefer LibreOffice myself); it's a tool to collaborate on tabular data with a group of people and minimal overhead.

amcvitty 6y ago
Interesting to note that cloud storage and realtime collaboration isn’t 100% tied to a browser-based interface though. Even though many existing apps work like that, there are desktop clients for a bunch of cloud-native SaaS (and even though some of those are Electron).
- creatio 6y ago
  > resolves all issues of conflicting versions. But isn't a problem in the browser, because you are always on the same version.
- jsmith99 6y ago
  Regular desktop Excel supports multi user collaboration on workbooks saved in onedrive exactly the same as excel online/Google sheets etc do. You can see what other users are working on and their changes are synced instantly. The only annoyance is when one user changes a filter and it changes for everyone.
frr149 6y ago
Using HTMl & CSS for your GUI is orthogonal with collaboration. It's just a hack that people accept

pastage 6y ago

Because you never use the same desktop, I myself can use up to 10 different devices, it is always easier to access stuff from a webbrowser. I do agree that the snappiness of Gnumeric is wonderful, and it's easier to do on desktop, nevertheless many desktop apps are worse than web apps.

patchtopic 6y ago

A tabular, instantly updating set of information is one I'm frequently discussing with groups of people online, it is ridiculously handy even with the overhead of a web browser slowing things down, if it's updating live. Of course a secure and easy to set up way to do it without the browser would be great as well.

raziel2p 6y ago

Available everywhere without installing anything, and I don't need to worry about file formats. With Google Drive I also appreciate that I can write custom functions using javascript which I already know, rather than learn some obscure language. I tried gnumeric just now and the crappy looking toolbar and the poor autocomplete experience for formula functions was enough to put me off.

app4soft 6y ago

> For example, as a free Excel alternative, I fall back to Gnumeric (http://www.gnumeric.org/ http://www.gnumeric.org/) from time to time. Gnumeric is useful, but its GUI is very laggy (more laggy than LibreOffice Calc). Sadly, there NO fast & usable Qt-based alternative to Excell for Linux yet. As lightweight spreadsheet app for Linux I use Qt-based mtCellEdit[0], which does not support .xls/.xlsx formats & could not fully replace Excell too. [0] https://github.com/matyler/mtCellEdit https://github.com/matyler/mtCellEdit

bmn__ 6y ago
https://calligra.org/sheets/ https://calligra.org/sheets/
- app4soft 6y ago
  Is there Qt-only (KDE-free) version of Calligra Sheets?

P4wl0w 6y ago

I think it really depends on the scenario: # Scenario 1 You are using one device where all your apps are installed or you have permission to install anything you want. You will find this in smaller companies with BYOD policy. # Scenario 2 You are using a lot of different devices and/or regularly have to work with a new device that is only setup with the basic applications. It is not possible or allowed to just install any app. You will find this in enterprise businesses with a lot of policies about devices and workflows. For #1 a solid desktop app is probably preferable but for #2 (prerequisite is a stable and fast internet connection) you can start working immediately when all necessary apps and data is available online. Also there could be web apps that benefit from a spreadsheet which is more than just a basic grid view.

abrbhat 6y ago

The browser is very accessible and understandable as an environment as compared to different kinds of desktop environments that exist. Sometimes having an imperfect thing which exists is better than a non-existent perfect thing. Sure, a web application will never be as snappier as a native application, but it can be built, deployed and maintained by a much smaller team than what would be required for supporting desktop applications for multiple environments. If it feels 'good enough' to the users, they won't care.

starfallg 6y ago
>Sure, a web application will never be as snappier as a native application, but it can be built, deployed and maintained by a much smaller team than what would be required for supporting desktop applications for multiple environments. A webapp has a wide range of operational costs that a native app doesn't. I can't see why a modern webapp would be cheaper to develop as well with similar programming languages. Their advantage comes mainly from the lack of the need to install software, and for the data to be accessible by every device.

asah 6y ago

No installation Multiple tabs/windows Don't leave the browser Works-at-all on multiple platforms incl mobile Deep linking / sharing / bookmarking App freezes are less common (on network access) and easier to manage when they happen - obviously this is anecdotal and not universal.

dorfsmay 6y ago
More importantly (for Google sheets): Easy to share No need to backup Cross platform (works on Linux)
- alpaca128 6y ago
  > No need to backup You trust Google etc. to never ban your account for any reason, or to stay available 100% of the time without outages?
  - fbrchps 6y ago
    You trust your hard drive to never fail during crunch time, or Jane Doe in accounting to not lose the flash drive that gets shared around the office every quarter? I'd take "generally highly available" vs "trusting my local copy" almost all the time. And as for using something like a Git'd Excel document: most people won't do that, and Github can go down, too. Just because Google Drive isn't perfect, doesn't mean it's not better/easier/more user friendly than what has been the standard for years.
    - kevincox 6y ago
      You need to back up your hard drive too. The point is that you always need to back up. Sure, if you pay Google you can probably rely on them. But it is still best to backup anyways.
    - alpaca128 6y ago
      It's not an either-or. My argument was for making backups, not cloud vs. local storage.

cosmodisk 6y ago

Just before I even start,I want to mention that I'm a fan of MS Office and don't really like Google Sheets ( it's like a toy to me). Having written this,I still do believe that there are millions of people out there for whom browser based spreadsheet application is all they really need. Those aren't people doing tens of thousands of rows manipulations from database extracts.Those are the people who'd have a simple file and do simple things with it. I see a lot of consultants working with it: they create UAT stories,share with multiple users on the client side and everybody knows what's going on.

alpaca128 6y ago

I am a big fan and user of keyboard shortcuts, and web apps make using those either weird and inconsistent with what you'd expect, or simply impossible. A user interface without support for keyboard shortcuts is not viable for productive use imho. Web apps built with modern frameworks often can't even be used by Vim plugins in the browser, either because scrolling doesn't work, or the frameworks and scripts do so much black magic in the background that not a single button in the GUI is recognised as clickable element by the Vim plugin. Broken by design. Not to mention all the performance issues and productivity blockers thanks to tracking, no support for right click(and its context menus) etc., instead we get animations which also add input lag to everything because it looks fancy.

t0astbread 6y ago

Why would you use interpreted languages but not JavaScript?

bevenky 6y ago

Well, like it or not it helps a lot with web first exp. and also with collaboration.