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Comment by danicgross | Hacker News Reader

An aside, but what do you do when your Google Sheet becomes too big?

I find things break down very quickly (based on number of collaborators or file size), and I'm writing (yet again) some type of Flask-Admin server. Retool (https://retool.com) is another option I've considered.

Any others?

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I'm currently working on https://LightSheets.app - it's going to be a high performance spreadsheet application. Today I managed to successfully import a 5 GB CSV file with ~50 million rows of data (around 10x more than Excel or Sheets can manage). Next steps will be a serialization format for spreadsheets this size, not sure exactly how this will work yet.

What kind of limits do you find you hit regarding the number of collaborators?

Love how fast your site loaded on my mobile phone. Props man.

2.39 KB landing page? A blurb above the fold not only addressing the purpose of this product but also the context that it's addressing? A digestible list of features and improvements over alternatives?

An exemplar to aspire to, for sure. Bravo!

Really kind of you, thanks. Now my challenge is to make an app that lives up to the landing page - some of the things are definitely challenging!

Thank you!

Any way to subscribe to your development? I'd be willing/interested to beta test things.

Any chance of actually doing something about the response to microsoft's query about using python as a macro language?

@redskyforge twitter handle.

The landing page is so "clean" it doesn't even include it as link. And I was quick scanning for links to click.

Ah, I should fix that, thanks for pointing it out! :)

Sure, mail me at davedx@gmail.com and I’ll keep you updated.

Which response was that? :)

Airtable is great for rapid iteration with a relational-database data model. I've seen it used as everything from a CRM/ticket-tracker to a Kanban tool. A Pro plan supports up to 50k rows per "base" (schema), fully real-time collaborative.

Salesforce is also a platform that lets you do practically anything without coding. Beware though: here lie dragons, a hellish programming experience... and incredible levels of career stability as a Salesforce consultant.

>An aside, but what do you do when your Google Sheet becomes too big?

A database.

I don’t understand all the posters talking about massive csv files in excel, sheets, etc.

How is that manageable or efficient and not error prone compared to a database or just csv processed with python or other code?

It's a familiar interface with well-understood operational primitives (copy, apply, combine, etc.). SQL/Python/writing declarative code introduces an interface which has a substantially steeper learning curve for anyone who isn't a power user, and is a step removed from the ease of use of drag-and-drop.

Same reasons webdevs crush pages with 112 js and css files when you could, you know, just render the page like you want it in the backend and save 90% of that overhead. It's human nature to "stick with the working solution" even after it outgrows itself many times over.

You'd be very surprised at how many smaller businesses are basically run using Excel spreadsheets. Accountants that are only slightly technical absolutely adore them.

I know of a fair few banks that settle trades using Excel spreadsheets.

You move back to Excel. Every time I tried something heavyweight- it just can't handle.

This sounds snarky, but I don't intend it that way at all. If your sheet is too big for Google, then you should be using a real spreadsheet application instead.

Try Visidata https://visidata.org/

I've been fooling with some giant CSV files for model training and yeah Google Sheets and Excel just freeze up or stop importing. So what I've found really handy to play and filter those giant files is Wizard Pro if you're on a mac: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wizard-pro/id497487206?mt=12

I had a massive monte-carlo type sheet and ended up moving a bunch of logic/calculation into attached scripts. Far more reliable and less likely to wedge.

Looks like you guys are working on some advanced use case of the sheets, is there anything I can look for such advanced usage. Like how people take more out of sheets. (I am using sheets with ifttt but nothing related to scripting in the sheets itself)

The docs for Apps Script are pretty good:

https://developers.google.com/apps-script

Start here for custom functions:

https://developers.google.com/apps-script/quickstart/custom-...

Array functions are weird in scripts, but just playing around with them should help understand how they work.

We had to move to Excel. :(

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