eddyparkinson

True - the experts choice and the mainstream choice are often different. An acquired taste?

I also use paymo - for small projects, it has every feature I need.

Web App builder: Turning the idea upside down, this helps smart non programmers create software with a spreadsheet. www.cellmaster.com.au (I only have a few early adopters).

Suggest you post to a learn to program site, such as http://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming

I am working on a way to make building web apps as simple as spreadsheets. www.cellmaster.com.au depends on your needs.

Good luck.

Patent lawyers will give a free 1 hour consult (depending on country).

Patents help you get acquired and get investment. But, they are very expensive to defend.

The process NOT the tool.

Yes spreadsheets have errors, but the only method I know of that is able to get error rates down to near zero is due process. There are good processes that reduce error rates to near zero, but there are no tools that reduce error rates to near zero. The problem is the process, not the tool.

I had a play with this.

There is demand for something like this. People want to make a simple table available to Java Script. A table that is easy to edit online.

I have seen a few people do this kind of thing with google docs spreadsheets. You can download a table as CSV from google docs. Or do table read/write via google-spreadsheet-API.

The growth area looks to be mobile apps. I have seen quite a few people on stackoverflow wanting a simple online table of data for mobile apps.

My interest, I want to make building web apps as simple as using a spreadsheet - http://www.cellmaster.com.au/#HN

Google spreadsheets will let you view a small area of a spreadsheet in a web page. This would then leave the problem of getting the flat file and DB data into the sheet, options for this are google apps script OR google-spreadsheet-api.

You could post this to stackoverflow.

It looks good, looks like you have put a lot of work into it. Why would I use this rather than the "Google Spreadsheet API"?

The message of why I would use it is not clear, maybe a tag line plus example usage. Maybe a simple example image with a picture of a spreadsheet and example app.

toastmaster do mentoring for public speaking. they have a great system. i keep thinking of setting up a similar system for programmers.

1) Creating an Estimate for fitting solar panels. 2) Storing orders for farm produce. 3) Stats/engineering calculations

Notes: These 3 are the main 3 that I have seen. i.e.

1) creating estimates. 2) mini database 3) Science/Stats/engineering calculations

I am working on this: www.cellmaster.com.au - so I ask people what they use spreadsheets for all the time.

I use http://www.paymo.biz/ and a spreadsheet to invoice.

I also use a shared spreadsheet to track TO DO items and provide rough estimates.

My need is minor - almost anything would do.

I was thinking about this, was wondering if "ToastMasters" style talks would work (http://www.toastmastersclubs.org/welcome/). I wonder if it would be possible to teach each other Tech stuff and use some of the methods that ToastMasters use. The format used is encouragement and improvements. First someone presents something and then someone else encourages the presenter and offers suggestions for improvement. People learn from each other and encourage each other.

I like the idea of using objects in cells - "Each cell returns a Python object". Any idea of the learning curve, how do users get on. How long does it take to learn compared to learning say vlookup?

Returning an object would help solve many spreadsheet problems. It is a great idea. Any thoughts on how to make the implementation easy to learn?

My interest - I am working on www.CellMaster.com.au

yes. two angles: 1) with a good teacher. where the teacher is using a system to teach. 2) language exchange. where both are at intermedite level or above. i lived in Japan for 5 years. I use skype a lot to talk with people back in Japan.

Shame less plug: Build a Web Application with spreadsheet like formulas. Simple example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oogKKfbRyMQ

Interesting. Sounds a bit like this: www.thelogicalbox.com Also a little like http://www.sumwise.com/

>“It’s really easy to build charts in Excel. But it’s really hard to get the data in the right format to do that,”

This is a famous spreadsheet problem. The only solutions I have seen are a bit like SQL. Hope you find a better way.

Err ... my interest: I am also working on a spreadsheet based startup, a web app builder for spreadsheet users.

Good luck, hope you add a solution or two to our world.

be able to write 1000 line of good quality code. have seen enough code to know what good code looks like. able to learn how to use a new api without any help.

although the best way is to get a friend with good coding skills to recommend you.

this is a classic http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/80121/How-To-Get-Media-...

1) Thoughts, this seams to be a bit of a brick wall, it gets lots of research papers published, but proposed solutions never seam to hit mainstream spreadsheet users.

2) Web App Builder for spreadsheet users. Surprisingly, it has a lot more power than other app builders. http://www.cellmaster.com.au/AppBuilder.html (just something I am working on, your thoughts?)

1) write it down and review after a day or two.

2) Do home work, search for the best current way to solve the problem.

3) scale matters, a jet engine was a big improvement over a propeller engine. Focus on big ideas

Reference - this is how someone who has PhD is taught to evaluate an idea. http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html

4) Einstein was well known for saying that he had so few good ideas, he did not need to write them down. He had learned how to measure the value of an idea.

As a side note, I also feel very good ideas, ideas that offer at least 100% ROI are so rare that you will know when you have one. 100% ROI is a tough call, but I would only spend time on ideas that offer 100+% ROI.

use it every day: For games and screen savers.

I don't need/use:For business software

But for a lot of small business software, my first guess is often wrong and I need a feedback loop.

Did you see: "A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6725387

Also, I am working on a spreadsheet idea, a kind of app builder for spreadsheet users. It has a little more power than existing database style app builders. www.cellmaster.com.au

use www.cellmaster.com.au (disclosure I am the founder) At the moment it is free for low volume usage.

These also look like they would do what you want, maybe spreadsheetconverter depends on your needs:

BaseCase.com

stoic.com

www.spreadsheetconverter.com

www.smartsheet.com

http://www.forguncy.com/ (Japanese)

www.spreadsheetweb.com

Please tell me more. Details of my email on www.cellmaster.com.au.

P.S. I also like ethercalc as spreadsheetguru suggested - but think many of above would be less work.

I like the perch tag idea.

Can you help, you understand web designers, would this suit the web designer market: An easy way of creating/editing web applications, lets people who have basic excel skills build sophisticated web applications. http://www.cellmaster.com.au/AppBuilder.html

What to do about it? ..... I often wish I could get points for pointing new users in the right direction.

Shares & Cliff Vesting: I liked this one: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/everything-you-need-to-kno...

Cool home page I wish mine was that good. Impressive UI.

Related work: (my stuff) http://www.cellmaster,com.au/AppBuilder.html The product is is different, unlike other approaches, you can create sophisticated custom software. Create custom software, with spreadsheet formulas, the kind a only programmer is able to create.

http://stoic.com - this is maybe the closet to relatable.io

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com

http://www.spreadsheetweb.com

http://BaseCase.com

http://www.smartsheet.com

http://www.forguncy.com/ (Japanese)

It is sad that the grant system is focused on selecting "elite" people, rather than improving the system. Improvements to the "research system" should be encouraged.

I suspect it is the "Role model" problem.

I am told, this is very well researched. And there is overwhelming evidence that role models do solve the problem. I understand UK office of statistics has the numbers that show how to solve this.

So if you are black/female and in IT let the next generation of kids know about it.