[HN Gopher] Show HN: Probly - Spreadsheets, Python, and AI in th...
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       Show HN: Probly - Spreadsheets, Python, and AI in the browser
        
       Probly was built to reduce context-switching between spreadsheet
       applications, Python notebooks, and AI tools. It's a simple
       spreadsheet that lets you talk to your data. Need pandas analysis?
       Just ask in plain English, and the code runs right in your browser.
       Want a chart? Just ask.  While there are tools available in this
       space like TheBricks, Probly is a minimalist, open-source solution
       built with React, TypeScript, Next.js, Handsontable, Hyperformula,
       Apache Echarts, OpenAI, and Pyodide. It's still a work in progress,
       but it's already useful for my daily tasks.
        
       Author : tobiadefami
       Score  : 114 points
       Date   : 2025-02-27 15:02 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | yawnxyz wrote:
       | Very cool!! Do y'all have an use-your-own-key example deployment
       | to try it?
        
         | tobiadefami wrote:
         | Thanks you!
         | 
         | Right now, you can clone the repo and follow the instructions
         | to run it locally with your own OpenAI key. I'm working on a
         | hosted demo that will let you try it out directly without any
         | setup. stay tuned :)
        
       | kippinitreal wrote:
       | Amazing name for this tool.
        
         | tobiadefami wrote:
         | Glad you like it!
        
           | arthurcolle wrote:
           | From the Miami colloquialism, "Supposably" could be good for
           | an advanced stats add-on!;)
        
             | tobiadefami wrote:
             | haha! i'll consider it
        
       | librasteve wrote:
       | How about a screen video?
        
         | tobiadefami wrote:
         | posted one about a week or so ago on my LinkedIn
         | 
         | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/oluwatobiadefami_vibe-coding-...
        
       | westurner wrote:
       | TIL that Apache Echarts can generate WAI-ARIA accessible textual
       | descriptions for charts and supports WebGL.
       | https://echarts.apache.org/en/feature.html#aria
       | 
       | apache/echarts: https://github.com/apache/echarts
       | 
       | Marimo notebook has functionality like rxpy and ipyflow to auto-
       | reexecute input cell dependencies fwiu:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404681#41406570 ..
       | https://github.com/marimo-team/marimo/releases/tag/0.8.4 :
       | 
       | > _With this release, it 's now possible to create standalone
       | notebook files that have package requirements embedded in them as
       | a comment, using PEP 723's inline metadata_
       | 
       | marimo-team/marimo: https://github.com/marimo-team/marimo
       | 
       | ipywidgets is another way to build event-based UIs in otherwise
       | Reproducible notebooks.
       | 
       | datasette-lite doesn't yet work with jupyterlite and _emscripten-
       | forge_ yet FWIU; but does build SQLite in WASM with pyodide.
       | https://github.com/simonw/datasette-lite
       | 
       | pygwalker: https://github.com/Kanaries/pygwalker ..
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35895899
       | 
       | How do you record manual interactions with ui controls and
       | spreadsheet grids to code for reproducibility?
       | 
       | > _" Generate code from GUI interactions; State restoration &
       | Undo" https://github.com/Kanaries/pygwalker/issues/90 _
       | 
       | > _The Scientific Method is testing, so testing (tests,
       | assertions, fixtures) should be core to any scientific workflow
       | system._
       | 
       | ipytest has a %%ipytest cell magic to run functions that start
       | with test_ and subclasses of unittest.TestCase with the pytest
       | test runner. https://github.com/chmp/ipytest
       | 
       | How can test functions with assertions be written with Probly?
        
       | szajbus wrote:
       | Interesting choice of a screenshot in the README... Manchester
       | United in top four, clearly a hallucination produced by the AI.
        
         | tobiadefami wrote:
         | Or the AI is a man united fan and is hopeful for a top 4 finish
         | this season :D
        
       | smjburton wrote:
       | Any plans to add a config for a Dockerfile/docker-compose.yml?
       | This could be really useful in a self-hosted environment. If you
       | go down this route, the ability to use something like Ollama in
       | place of OpenAI would be a nice feature as well.
        
       | Onavo wrote:
       | Can you package it as a standalone npm component library for
       | embedding?
        
       | jimbokun wrote:
       | One of the things that has seemed suboptimal to me is having AI
       | "write code".
       | 
       | Doesn't it make more sense to ask AI a question, and the AI
       | figures out what code is needed to answer the question, run it,
       | and report the answer?
       | 
       | From the description sounds like this project is a step in that
       | direction.
        
         | hathawsh wrote:
         | OTOH, what is "code"? In a general sense, I think of "code" as
         | the "codification of a process." If we want to know what steps
         | the AI is following to complete a process, then having an AI
         | write code seems like a correct and necessary part of the
         | solution.
        
       | librasteve wrote:
       | I have a pressing need to come up with a household budget and had
       | already decided to try using LLMs to help on this task since
       | learning LLMs/prompt engineering is more fun than just writing a
       | dumb script to do accounts.
       | 
       | Thought i would try this tool - and here's a quick review of the
       | experience:
       | 
       | - the quickstart instructions are very clear and I was up and
       | running on my localhost (a mac - but I think this will work well
       | on windows and linx too)
       | 
       | - the UX is good ... slight wrinkle is that the upload button has
       | a down arrow ... also Ctrl+Shift+/ doesn't work on a mac - took
       | me a while to find the speech bubble icon in the bottom right
       | 
       | - love the import / export, love the chat box - worked well with
       | my existing OpenAI account
       | 
       | So - this is a fantastic concept and a well executed MLP -
       | thanks.
       | 
       | That said - and I highly encourage you to keep going - there are
       | a couple of caveats:
       | 
       | 1. The task I set is realworld - "please categorize my bank
       | transactions into household expense groups" - and proved too much
       | for my ChatGPT o1 account - most lines were labelled as 'other',
       | bank charges were labelled 'fuel', etc, etc - so the underlying
       | AI engine is not yet ready for this sadly (I am happy to be
       | corrected if others know the recipe)
       | 
       | 2. I wonder if using a tool like this, a set of LLM prompts to
       | set up the query and to comb the response would help to chip away
       | at [1] ... so I suggest that having a way for my config to
       | accumulate my prompts maybe a nice feature.
       | 
       | Please do not take this f/back as negative to your work ... it is
       | more my getting to grips with the AI sweet spot.
        
       | swyx wrote:
       | any comparisons with https://github.com/quadratichq/quadratic ?
       | 
       | *necessary disclosure, i'm a small angel investor in it but
       | genuinely open to see new approaches
        
       | canadiantim wrote:
       | Any possibility for google sheets support?
        
       | anonu wrote:
       | I can see ChatGPT including a spreadsheet component like this in
       | their chat one day.
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-27 23:00 UTC)