I would really like to see a good tool in the "beyond Google Sheets"-space.
I tried Ragic just now for 10-15 minutes and it is far from simple, like their landing page claims. It is nothing at all like a database and it also is nothing at all like a spreadsheet (and not in a good way).
Not sure what you mean by "beyond Google Sheets" space, but there have been some cool spreadsheet tools emerging recently.
http://www.alphasheets.com/ is still mostly in stealth (as far as I can tell) but they let you mix and match SQL, Python, R, and Excel formulae in a spreadsheet.
Lateness is a mostly meaningless metric. On the one hand, it's vague, and on the other hand, it has little inherent value. Doubly meaningless.
For example, let's say a team is given 4 projects. They provide rough effort estimates and schedule those projects on the calendar, with normal buffer for support issues, changes, etc. Then a new ultra-high-priority, life-of-the-company-at-stake project comes down from the CEO, and everything else gets pushed back by months.
So, are those original 4 projects technically late? By many studies' definitions, they would be categorized late.
Furthermore, does it matter if they are late? If you're late on 80% of your projects but deliver on time for 100% of your critical projects, is that so bad?
Not having the demo ready for the tradeshow is a real problem. Not having the compliance changes in by the deadline is a real problem. Not having the integration upgrade done before your partner turns off the old version is a real problem. And so on. Missing some date that was arbitrarily chosen, probably months or years ago, eh, that doesn't necessarily bother me.
I'm not arguing that it's good to be late. It's obviously better for projects to be delivered when expected to let businesses make projections, plan, etc. I'm just saying the real world is messy and full of tradeoffs. If you're constantly reacting to fires and unexpectedly missing deadlines, that's a sign that better project management is needed. However, if you're working with business stakeholders to reprioritize efforts and adapt to changing realities, that can be good in my opinion – even though externally it can appear that projects are "late".
Edit: To be clear, I'm not really agreeing or disagreeing with parent's comment on the source of lateness. I'm commenting on using stats like these as evidence that something is broken in software development.
This particular application has name called database application builder (DAB). I think that's probably how DabbleDB got its name. Also checkout out Caspio (http://caspio.com) and ZenBase (http://getzenbase.com). They are similar products in this space.
We have been running Flexlists.com[0] for many years as a 'background sideproject'. Not to make money; it was to scratch an itch and I still use it a lot. We launch somewhere before DabbleDB I think and some others and they all folded so we never took it further. Ours is trivially simple to use which I do not find the case with others. The interface is somewhat dated and the source code has only been updated for security in the recent 5 years. I am going to continue with it soon as I do believe there is something and Flexlists has enough users and fans. Good to see people are still working in this space.
A bit off topic: their landing page is really very well done. My only picking is their name: Ragic!.. Simpler software doesn't have to sound unprofessional.
Exactly what I was going to compare this to. And I hope it is—DabbleDB was excellent. This looks like it has more interoperation features (Excel synchronization) but maybe doesn't have the auto-guessed column-types + relations that DabbleDB had.
It's always nice to see tools tackling the everyday challenges of allowing the non-programmer to solve his problems instead of hot air duds like LightTable and Eve that try to create some revolutionary paradigm that is unfamiliar to both programmers and non-programmers.
[+] [-] hobofan|9 years ago|reply
I tried Ragic just now for 10-15 minutes and it is far from simple, like their landing page claims. It is nothing at all like a database and it also is nothing at all like a spreadsheet (and not in a good way).
Edit: Looking at previous discussions about it here on HN, the criticism in this 5 year old comment all still holds true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3960207
[+] [-] kornish|9 years ago|reply
http://www.alphasheets.com/ is still mostly in stealth (as far as I can tell) but they let you mix and match SQL, Python, R, and Excel formulae in a spreadsheet.
Airtable seems pretty polished (https://airtable.com/).
Both of these are definitely spreadsheets, though. Not sure if you're looking for something more specialized for a certain vertical or problem domain.
[+] [-] cominatchu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phillc73|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abhishivsaxena|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] overcast|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmccullough|9 years ago|reply
Due to piss poor project managers and lack of business requirements and/or realistic deadlines.
[+] [-] Tenhundfeld|9 years ago|reply
For example, let's say a team is given 4 projects. They provide rough effort estimates and schedule those projects on the calendar, with normal buffer for support issues, changes, etc. Then a new ultra-high-priority, life-of-the-company-at-stake project comes down from the CEO, and everything else gets pushed back by months.
So, are those original 4 projects technically late? By many studies' definitions, they would be categorized late.
Furthermore, does it matter if they are late? If you're late on 80% of your projects but deliver on time for 100% of your critical projects, is that so bad?
Not having the demo ready for the tradeshow is a real problem. Not having the compliance changes in by the deadline is a real problem. Not having the integration upgrade done before your partner turns off the old version is a real problem. And so on. Missing some date that was arbitrarily chosen, probably months or years ago, eh, that doesn't necessarily bother me.
I'm not arguing that it's good to be late. It's obviously better for projects to be delivered when expected to let businesses make projections, plan, etc. I'm just saying the real world is messy and full of tradeoffs. If you're constantly reacting to fires and unexpectedly missing deadlines, that's a sign that better project management is needed. However, if you're working with business stakeholders to reprioritize efforts and adapt to changing realities, that can be good in my opinion – even though externally it can appear that projects are "late".
Edit: To be clear, I'm not really agreeing or disagreeing with parent's comment on the source of lateness. I'm commenting on using stats like these as evidence that something is broken in software development.
[+] [-] peteretep|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chenster|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avibryant|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tluyben2|9 years ago|reply
[0] http://flexlists.com
[+] [-] macmac|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] galfarragem|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] collyw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bikamonki|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zellyn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derefr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtdewcmu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcg1|9 years ago|reply
2) There is no perpetual license to worry about, only pay as long as you need your data.
3) Access allowed business people to muddle through creating database that IT hated to have to maintain... this is obviously different.
[+] [-] peteretep|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _pmf_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fiatjaf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etchalon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidascher|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saycheese|9 years ago|reply
They need to redirect any http to https for the sign-up page; they already do this for the login page.
[+] [-] sebringj|9 years ago|reply