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Interesting. I think because "no code" doesn't actually empower people. Seems paradoxical but it's not. Belief empowers, without that you think, I might break

Interesting. I think because "no code" doesn't actually empower people. Seems paradoxical but it's not. Belief empowers, without that you think, I might break it, and that will be terrible. You can't break a spreadsheet.

joshspankit 6y ago
Clearly you’ve never tried to have multiple people work on a super important and also macro-ridden xls file. Spreadsheets can absolutely get broken
- skellystudios 6y ago
  Definitely that. Also: ever had to write in all caps "Don't touch this column!" to stop people breaking your formulas. Giving people access to your sheet can be like giving them access to your SQL database.
- sct202 6y ago
  The nice thing with spreadsheets is people can also rescue themselves by saving off copies... but the flipside is that there are 10 versions and no one remembers which one is the good one.
- browsergap 6y ago
  Clearly you didn't see what I mean. I mean you can't break the "app". A spreadsheet app like Excel runs and it's literally like a kid's sandbox where you can do stuff in the sheet and Excel will just keep chugging. And if Excel breaks hey it ain't your fault. My point is people don't want the responsibility us devs have to build "apps" that they are afraid they will make broken. I think we probably don't need no code tools to help people build "apps" we need a more expressive executable document the combine stuff from the web, Microsoft word documents and Excel into something that's a little more powerful and fits today's use cases. Just my two cents. Feel free to try to crucify me cuz my views differ to yours.
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    I’m confused. Are we not talking about the psychology of day-to-day users, where they are afraid to tinker too much? That’s the impression I got when you said “Belief empowers, without that you think, I might break it, and that will be terrible.” If that’s the case, then I stand by my comment as I’ve seen first-hand the hesitation people have about accidentally breaking a mission-critical spreadsheet. Now, let’s be clear: I have not said anything about “no code”, as to me there are a lot of compelling arguments both ways in this thread. I am saying that “Excel” is not unbreakable nor does it free the user from fears about breaking something important (from a business perspective, breaking a vital xls document and breaking the Excel application itself are functionally equivalent, even though you and I know that Excel the program can be fixed essentially trivially by the right person with the right tools)
    - browsergap 6y ago
      Sorry I should have seen what happened. I made a good point, and you took a tiny piece of it, found something to disagree with and held on for dear life, to prove "joshspankit is right", "browsergap is wrong". Yay! Congratulations! Good for you. Within the confines of your narrow misinterpretation, you have proved you're self right again, you advance to the next stage. If I hadn't been so triggered by being unresolved about being criticized as a kid...I probably would have seen that what you're saying just backs up what I said: if people are scared of complex sheets, they're likely terrified of app makers. I wish people like you would acknowledge the good points I make, and not take them out of context, and not define themselves by disagreement, but say something like, "Well you can break a spreadsheet. But I get what you're saying, it's less scary than apps in general." And I wish I could not get triggered and just respond like: "Yes you can break a spreadsheet. But they're still way safer than app makers. Which is what I mean." And I wish HN was not such a fucking shit show of people acting out and abusing and being mean to each other...but then why do I keep coming back? But I'm not the boss of HN and I'm not the boss of you. So all I can do is fix my own reactions. People like you gonna keep existing...finding disagreements, maybe you enjoy it...maybe you're unresolved about something and this is how maladaptively try to recapture your power. Whatever it is, we're all fucked up. We all just gotta find our own way that's to live that's free and untormented by past traumas that we didn't deserve and that are not our fault. Maybe that's why I keep coming back...because it pushes my buttons, and I know that's some opportunity...it gives me a chance to work it out...rather than just "act out" on automatic. :)
browsergap 6y ago
Thinking about this more, I think we need less expressive tools with less freedom. Freedom = more ways it can fuck up. Which is more scary. We don't need "easy to use". Easy to use just means "easy to make a big mess." It probably needs to be hard to fuck up, less magic, not too expressive, but targeted on the problem. Constrain people, and they will still find a way. I think making things easy to use has been over-hyped by idiot founders and investors who don't get the customers they pretend to understand. But yeah, reject me from YC 9 times, and don't fund my work...I guess being an indie dev/maker is more my style. Who wants to have an investor boss anyway?
- sitkack 6y ago
  You are asking for higher level abstractions and I agree with you. The application development paradigm has been stuck for awhile, it transcend where we are currently at. I don't have an answer.
duncan_bayne 6y ago
Muwhahahahahahahaha. True client story: I was once required to fill out opex/capex split timesheets into an Excel spreadsheet once a month, for each of my teams. The spreadsheet came with instructions containing dire warnings that changing the formatting would change the semantic meaning of some of the cells, thereby breaking the spreadsheet for everyone. I'm pretty sure that the developers of that spreadsheet used cell formatting to encode metadata about the cell values.

joshspankit 6y ago

Clearly you’ve never tried to have multiple people work on a super important and also macro-ridden xls file. Spreadsheets can absolutely get broken

skellystudios 6y ago
Definitely that. Also: ever had to write in all caps "Don't touch this column!" to stop people breaking your formulas. Giving people access to your sheet can be like giving them access to your SQL database.
sct202 6y ago
The nice thing with spreadsheets is people can also rescue themselves by saving off copies... but the flipside is that there are 10 versions and no one remembers which one is the good one.
browsergap 6y ago
Clearly you didn't see what I mean. I mean you can't break the "app". A spreadsheet app like Excel runs and it's literally like a kid's sandbox where you can do stuff in the sheet and Excel will just keep chugging. And if Excel breaks hey it ain't your fault. My point is people don't want the responsibility us devs have to build "apps" that they are afraid they will make broken. I think we probably don't need no code tools to help people build "apps" we need a more expressive executable document the combine stuff from the web, Microsoft word documents and Excel into something that's a little more powerful and fits today's use cases. Just my two cents. Feel free to try to crucify me cuz my views differ to yours.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  I’m confused. Are we not talking about the psychology of day-to-day users, where they are afraid to tinker too much? That’s the impression I got when you said “Belief empowers, without that you think, I might break it, and that will be terrible.” If that’s the case, then I stand by my comment as I’ve seen first-hand the hesitation people have about accidentally breaking a mission-critical spreadsheet. Now, let’s be clear: I have not said anything about “no code”, as to me there are a lot of compelling arguments both ways in this thread. I am saying that “Excel” is not unbreakable nor does it free the user from fears about breaking something important (from a business perspective, breaking a vital xls document and breaking the Excel application itself are functionally equivalent, even though you and I know that Excel the program can be fixed essentially trivially by the right person with the right tools)
  - browsergap 6y ago
    Sorry I should have seen what happened. I made a good point, and you took a tiny piece of it, found something to disagree with and held on for dear life, to prove "joshspankit is right", "browsergap is wrong". Yay! Congratulations! Good for you. Within the confines of your narrow misinterpretation, you have proved you're self right again, you advance to the next stage. If I hadn't been so triggered by being unresolved about being criticized as a kid...I probably would have seen that what you're saying just backs up what I said: if people are scared of complex sheets, they're likely terrified of app makers. I wish people like you would acknowledge the good points I make, and not take them out of context, and not define themselves by disagreement, but say something like, "Well you can break a spreadsheet. But I get what you're saying, it's less scary than apps in general." And I wish I could not get triggered and just respond like: "Yes you can break a spreadsheet. But they're still way safer than app makers. Which is what I mean." And I wish HN was not such a fucking shit show of people acting out and abusing and being mean to each other...but then why do I keep coming back? But I'm not the boss of HN and I'm not the boss of you. So all I can do is fix my own reactions. People like you gonna keep existing...finding disagreements, maybe you enjoy it...maybe you're unresolved about something and this is how maladaptively try to recapture your power. Whatever it is, we're all fucked up. We all just gotta find our own way that's to live that's free and untormented by past traumas that we didn't deserve and that are not our fault. Maybe that's why I keep coming back...because it pushes my buttons, and I know that's some opportunity...it gives me a chance to work it out...rather than just "act out" on automatic. :)

browsergap 6y ago

Thinking about this more, I think we need less expressive tools with less freedom. Freedom = more ways it can fuck up. Which is more scary. We don't need "easy to use". Easy to use just means "easy to make a big mess." It probably needs to be hard to fuck up, less magic, not too expressive, but targeted on the problem. Constrain people, and they will still find a way. I think making things easy to use has been over-hyped by idiot founders and investors who don't get the customers they pretend to understand. But yeah, reject me from YC 9 times, and don't fund my work...I guess being an indie dev/maker is more my style. Who wants to have an investor boss anyway?

sitkack 6y ago
You are asking for higher level abstractions and I agree with you. The application development paradigm has been stuck for awhile, it transcend where we are currently at. I don't have an answer.

duncan_bayne 6y ago

Muwhahahahahahahaha. True client story: I was once required to fill out opex/capex split timesheets into an Excel spreadsheet once a month, for each of my teams. The spreadsheet came with instructions containing dire warnings that changing the formatting would change the semantic meaning of some of the cells, thereby breaking the spreadsheet for everyone. I'm pretty sure that the developers of that spreadsheet used cell formatting to encode metadata about the cell values.