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Hey there, VisiData author here. Nice work with tv! I'm sure it's more useful than VisiData for certain use cases. I just want to clear some things up since t
by saulpw 5y ago
Hey there, VisiData author here. Nice work with tv! I'm sure it's more useful than VisiData for certain use cases. I just want to clear some things up since there are a few misconceptions here (which will happen if you don't use VisiData a lot):
1. In VisiData, The number of rows is always shown in the lower right, and you can see the number of columns with either Ctrl+G or a list of the columns with Shift+C. Or Shift+I for the list of columns with summary statistics (mode/distinct/errors/etc). This is an extra keystroke, but the amount of data you can get with that keystroke more than justifies it.
5. VisiData will instantly open and show any file it can, and continue to load the rest until it's done or you press Ctrl+C (or quit). Everything in VisiData is lazily evaluated, so it's not actually doing any more work than tv when you view the first page of rows, and then you can see the next few pages of rows with only one keystroke (PgDn, as opposed to having to edit a command and rerun it). Fewer keypresses ftw!
A lot of people think VisiData is a TUI spreadsheet, but vd is not a "spreadsheet" in the classic sense, as it's not cell-based. Its primary use-case is exploring and wrangling tabular data. It just turns out that this is what a lot of people are doing with their spreadsheets, but they have to bend over backwards to get Excel/whatever to play nice with their data's structure. By the same token, if you try to do little single-cell formulas in VisiData, it's going to be quite difficult.
For people who like static binaries and only need to view a few rows of CSV files, or produce part of a larger report in a pipeline, tv could be a better fit than VisiData, especially if it continues to be maintained. I'm always excited to see new data tools in the terminal space!
- flusteredBias 5y agoOo, I am sorry. I see I misrepresented VisiData. I apologize. Thank you for the corrections. I have a lot of respect your work. Let me know if I can make it up to you. I would be happy to point people to VisiData in my README as a recommendation of a tool that is built to explore and wrangle tabular data. Also, thanks for the compliment! Like you, I like seeing more data tools in the terminal.
- flusteredBias 5y agohttps://github.com/alexhallam/tv/pull/58 https://github.com/alexhallam/tv/pull/58 I added VisiData in my README and represented it in a positive light in the description. Again, just wanted to apologize for my mistake. #better-together