4 ms·

Show HN: Small, public, shareable spreadsheets

19 points by fiatjaf 12y ago

consultutah 12y ago
I was thinking of doing something similar (not spreadsheets, but open editable pages). How to do generate the ids?
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  I use https://www.npmjs.org/package/cuid https://www.npmjs.org/package/cuid
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  About open editable pages, are you imagining something like http://consultutah.42pag.es/ http://consultutah.42pag.es/?
  - consultutah 12y ago
    No, it's not really "editable pages". I've just got an idea for a weekend project that needs unique, but book markable pages. I could easily use a guid, but wanted a shorter id, saw this and thought I'd ask. Thx!
- stevekemp 12y ago
  A lot of simple sites just use an incrementing ID which is encoded in base36 for output: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_36 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_36 If you don't care about the lengths of identifiers you can instead use a GUID. Otherwise you're down to compressed strings that slowly expand in length, and uniqueness tests on generation.
  - nateparrott 12y ago
    You might also want to append some random data onto each id you assign, to prevent malicious bots from just iterating through all the id's and doing evil on them.
wffurr 12y ago
I see empty cells are treated as zero by SUM and the + operator: http://sheets.alhur.es/c8045lb http://sheets.alhur.es/c8045lb This reminds me of http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2014-August/115586.html http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2014-August/11... >> There is no excuse for a spreadsheet quietly taking a never-assigned cell as zero, but indeed it does. WHAT THE HELL WERE THESE PEOPLE SMOKING? HN link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8284939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8284939
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  Are you saying this is bad, or just quoting the blog post for fun and information? I don't think it is bad. Spreadsheets are not meant as programming engines, just as practical editable tables. As for "the wrong sum" he complais about in the link, people would know it was meant to be the eternally correct sum, because they will see the empty cells waiting to be filled (either by data or by imagination).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rahimnathwani 12y ago
Also check out this project, being featured in the next AOSA book: https://github.com/audreyt/500lines/blob/master/spreadsheet/chapter.md https://github.com/audreyt/500lines/blob/master/spreadsheet/...

19 points by fiatjaf 12y ago

consultutah 12y ago

I was thinking of doing something similar (not spreadsheets, but open editable pages). How to do generate the ids?

fiatjaf 12y ago
I use https://www.npmjs.org/package/cuid https://www.npmjs.org/package/cuid
fiatjaf 12y ago
About open editable pages, are you imagining something like http://consultutah.42pag.es/ http://consultutah.42pag.es/?
- consultutah 12y ago
  No, it's not really "editable pages". I've just got an idea for a weekend project that needs unique, but book markable pages. I could easily use a guid, but wanted a shorter id, saw this and thought I'd ask. Thx!
stevekemp 12y ago
A lot of simple sites just use an incrementing ID which is encoded in base36 for output: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_36 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_36 If you don't care about the lengths of identifiers you can instead use a GUID. Otherwise you're down to compressed strings that slowly expand in length, and uniqueness tests on generation.
- nateparrott 12y ago
  You might also want to append some random data onto each id you assign, to prevent malicious bots from just iterating through all the id's and doing evil on them.

wffurr 12y ago

I see empty cells are treated as zero by SUM and the + operator: http://sheets.alhur.es/c8045lb http://sheets.alhur.es/c8045lb This reminds me of http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2014-August/115586.html http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2014-August/11... >> There is no excuse for a spreadsheet quietly taking a never-assigned cell as zero, but indeed it does. WHAT THE HELL WERE THESE PEOPLE SMOKING? HN link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8284939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8284939

fiatjaf 12y ago
Are you saying this is bad, or just quoting the blog post for fun and information? I don't think it is bad. Spreadsheets are not meant as programming engines, just as practical editable tables. As for "the wrong sum" he complais about in the link, people would know it was meant to be the eternally correct sum, because they will see the empty cells waiting to be filled (either by data or by imagination).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rahimnathwani 12y ago

Also check out this project, being featured in the next AOSA book: https://github.com/audreyt/500lines/blob/master/spreadsheet/chapter.md https://github.com/audreyt/500lines/blob/master/spreadsheet/...