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> The problem is that databases do not include a GUI for data viewing. Exactly. It baffles me that such a tool still doesn't exist (though elsewhere someone cl

by mcv 5y ago

> The problem is that databases do not include a GUI for data viewing. Exactly. It baffles me that such a tool still doesn't exist (though elsewhere someone claimed that MS Access is like this; I'm not familiar with it). Keeping this in the cloud, with a web-based Excel-like interface, where you can share it with anyone you choose, but keep a single source of truth, I think that would be incredibly useful and solve this Excel-misuse issue.

alex1431999 5y ago
There is actually a tool that does exactly what you describe. It's called baserow :) https://baserow.io/ https://baserow.io/ It's open source and hosted in the cloud. It has an excel like interface that you can share and work on with others.
ableal 5y ago
Funnily enough, I think one the original IBM PC killer apps was exactly that - dBase III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase MS Access was the usurper of dBase's crown. And then Excel took over ...
- jaclaz 5y ago
  I would mention also (although it didn't have much success in the end) the Borland database, Paradox for Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_(database) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_(database) I am not at all a programmer, but I remember that at least in early version(s) MS Access (circa 1994, Windows 3.1 times) was well behind Paradox in usability.
Aloha 5y ago
A modern web-based cloud-hosted access implementation would be a killer app for web-2.0.
ChadNauseam 5y ago
Forgive my ignorance, but isn't that what Airtable is?
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
Access is literally this, and it never caught on. The are a ton of benefits to enforcing data integrity like data types, foreign keys, etc., but it also adds a ton of friction. Users encounter tons of frustrating errors while simply copying and pasting things, because certain values aren't allowed in certain columns. I think you'd need human-readable datatypes displayed beneath each column name, adjustable by just clicking it and changing it in the drop-down, and massive flexibility out of the box. You shouldn't throw hard errors - just visually mark the invalid values red or pink or whatever, and let the user fix then before writing them to the database.
alex1431999 5y ago
There is actually a tool like that, it's called Baserow :) It does exactly what you mentioned. It's a cloud hosted, database tool with an excel like interface and collaboration features. It is also open source and can be self hosted, but you can use the oficial website to use it directly without having to use it yourself :)

by mcv 5y ago

alex1431999 5y ago

There is actually a tool that does exactly what you describe. It's called baserow :) https://baserow.io/ https://baserow.io/ It's open source and hosted in the cloud. It has an excel like interface that you can share and work on with others.

ableal 5y ago

Funnily enough, I think one the original IBM PC killer apps was exactly that - dBase III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase MS Access was the usurper of dBase's crown. And then Excel took over ...

jaclaz 5y ago
I would mention also (although it didn't have much success in the end) the Borland database, Paradox for Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_(database) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_(database) I am not at all a programmer, but I remember that at least in early version(s) MS Access (circa 1994, Windows 3.1 times) was well behind Paradox in usability.

Aloha 5y ago

A modern web-based cloud-hosted access implementation would be a killer app for web-2.0.

ChadNauseam 5y ago

Forgive my ignorance, but isn't that what Airtable is?

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago

Access is literally this, and it never caught on. The are a ton of benefits to enforcing data integrity like data types, foreign keys, etc., but it also adds a ton of friction. Users encounter tons of frustrating errors while simply copying and pasting things, because certain values aren't allowed in certain columns. I think you'd need human-readable datatypes displayed beneath each column name, adjustable by just clicking it and changing it in the drop-down, and massive flexibility out of the box. You shouldn't throw hard errors - just visually mark the invalid values red or pink or whatever, and let the user fix then before writing them to the database.

alex1431999 5y ago

There is actually a tool like that, it's called Baserow :) It does exactly what you mentioned. It's a cloud hosted, database tool with an excel like interface and collaboration features. It is also open source and can be self hosted, but you can use the oficial website to use it directly without having to use it yourself :)