[HN Gopher] Show HN: Quadratic - native JavaScript support in a ...
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Show HN: Quadratic - native JavaScript support in a spreadsheet
We built JavaScript natively into a spreadsheet as a cell language.
Use JS to analyze and work with data in a high-performance
spreadsheet built on Rust and WASM. Quadratic also supports SQL,
Python, and formulas. The goal with Quadratic is to build a
modern, high-performance, source-available spreadsheet for
everyone. From technical developers to users who have never written
code. Sharing our JS launch with everyone today to see what you
build in Quadratic.
Author : Manchego79
Score : 102 points
Date : 2024-09-27 15:24 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quadratichq.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quadratichq.com)
| dest wrote:
| Interesting product. We would use that as a backoffice that would
| be self hosted, fetching from and pushing to backend APIs. Is
| that use case on your roadmap?
|
| Basically an alternative to Google sheet with JS macros in it.
| Gsheet is no good for us because we have data protection
| requirements.
| Manchego79 wrote:
| Yep, we're currently rolling out pilots for self-hosting. If
| you're interested, feel free to reach out via the contact page
| on our website.
| trog wrote:
| You can run JS in Excel now too though, I believe?
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/referen...
| cloudking wrote:
| How does your product differentiate from Google Apps Script? I
| see you can execute JS within a cell, but why is that a better UX
| than keeping the code separated like Apps Script does?
| Manchego79 wrote:
| Quadratic is built for doing analytics, and a native JavaScript
| experience where you're in the weeds with the data just felt
| better. We wanted JavaScript to be a first-class citizen in the
| spreadsheet, as formulas are treated first-class in most
| spreadsheets.
|
| When they're separated, the experience feels bolted on (to us).
| Being native means supporting existing libraries like Fetch for
| APIs, chart.js for charts, brain.js for ML, etc., not to
| mention performance!
| Onavo wrote:
| Note that they have a GitHub but they are not open source.
| Manchego79 wrote:
| Correct, our license is Source Available to be as open as
| possible while reserving commercial rights, which we believe
| will ultimately enable us to build the best product for users.
| victor106 wrote:
| What does "Source Available" mean exactly?
|
| Does it mean all our source code is on Github but you cannot
| use it to host your own instance for commercial purposes but
| okay for personal projects?
| dest wrote:
| More probably code available on demand but without any
| license attached
| sahmeepee wrote:
| Datat visualizations?
| Manchego79 wrote:
| For visualizations, we support Chart.js. You can also use our
| built-in AI to help write the code.
| sahmeepee wrote:
| I'm referring to the typo in your very first heading, unless
| datat visualisations is a term I don't know.
| Manchego79 wrote:
| Thanks for the heads-up on that.
| fshafique wrote:
| It's like taking the data-science notebook model (eg. Jupyter
| Notebook) and using spreadsheets instead.
| freshlentils wrote:
| yeah - seems like in enterprises ppl still want spreadsheets,
| but more and more people also want code, spreadsheets + code
| fermuch wrote:
| I've tried to use `fetch()` and it works. How did you handle that
| from WASM? Or is it cached?
| mpweiher wrote:
| See _The Analytic Spreadsheet_ from 1986.
|
| https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/28697.28737
| pmarreck wrote:
| That's a neat idea. How did you lock down security?
| Manchego79 wrote:
| Is there anything specifically about security you're curious
| about?
|
| We're also offering a self-hosted version you can deploy on
| your own cloud, env., or Docker container.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I guess, since all the JS runs locally, you don't have to
| worry as much about things like privilege escalation?
| mattlondon wrote:
| Genuine question: How is this different from Google sheets? I
| don't see much here that I've not already been doing for years in
| Google sheets (except native python I guess - JS, SQL, fetch()
| etc has otherwise been there for ages and it's all free)
|
| Also the logo looks a lot like Microsoft? I am not colourblind
| but it might look even more similar if you are?
| attilakun wrote:
| They seem to execute JS locally in the browser. Google Sheets
| makes a network call for this, which results in a laggy
| experience. I ran into this while I was developing my own
| Google Sheets add-on [1] which allows inline definition of JS
| within Sheets but the lag makes the UX subpar.
|
| [1]: https://www.evaljs.net/
| Ashwinning wrote:
| This looks really awesome! But same question here:
|
| GSheets has let me write JS (Google Script) in the spreadsheet
| (w/ multiplayer, free db & API hosting like features with a
| little bit of JS, ++) and now has some Gemini support rolling
| in.
|
| Excel is rolling out support for Python and Jupyter as well.
|
| I'm trying to wrap my head around who the ideal user/customer
| is here w/ a hair on fire problem, and what problems are being
| addressed that are overlooked by the 2 most popular spreadsheet
| tools.
| mcdonje wrote:
| I can't speak to Google Sheets, but the Excel support for
| Python is currently severely lacking and poorly thought out.
|
| People want VBA to be replaced with Python, JS, or something
| else widely used and respected. Typescript would be good.
|
| That's not what's happening. They're adding in piecemeal
| functionality that doesn't necessarily solve any problems or
| fit into the ecosystem.
| oliveralbertini wrote:
| Can you get through https api the data on the spreadsheet ?
| xiaodai wrote:
| These approach has been tried so many times and has failed so
| many times that it's not funny
| etbebl wrote:
| I guess I wasn't around to see it; do you mind saying why it's
| failed? Well, I don't know if it's commercially viable, but
| just speaking for myself I've been looking for something like
| this for a while.
| ies7 wrote:
| The ones who use spreadsheet usually don't write code well.
|
| The ones who code usually don't like spreadsheet.
| etbebl wrote:
| What gets me is that even if you don't code much, if you're
| using a spreadsheet with formulas, in that moment you are
| writing code, and doing so in an awful, awful language.
| Sure, "SUM" is easy, but the moment you have any kind of
| conditional logic it gets pretty hairy. Maybe there's
| something about traditional spreadsheet languages that
| makes them easier than, say, numpy for non-coders, but I
| don't see it.
| TheTaytay wrote:
| I've been looking for exactly this. (For Python to be specific,
| but I see you support that too.) Nice!
|
| What are the limits on number of rows, data in cells, and number
| of columns? I saw you say "infinite" on one blurb but couldn't
| find reference to limits anywhere else.
| halfcat wrote:
| Does it export to Excel?
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Emacs org mode with org babel allows you to use many programming
| languages in its spreadsheets, for at least small sizes of
| spreadsheets, or multiple spreadsheet throughout the document.
| There can be some friction though, converting strings to other
| types, to perform calculation.
| babyent wrote:
| Nice. How long you've worked on building it? Is it released
| today?
| attilakun wrote:
| Do you evaluate JS using a web worker in the browser?
| https://github.com/quadratichq/quadratic/blob/qa/quadratic-c...
|
| How effective is this as a sandbox, are there any know (security)
| tradeoffs? I was using QuickJS for my previous projects but I'm
| wondering if yours is a better solution (it's certainly more
| performant).
| mitemte wrote:
| This might be of interest https://github.com/asvd/jailed.
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