Ask HN: Excel as a back end? Well now you can

[jarirajari]

I am currently writing a lowcode platform that allows defining backend as Excel functions. The format is not visually organized as spreadsheets or cells but differently. The platform also allows connecting different data sources and targets to it. Finally, you can connect to the backend itself using a REST API!

Some problems with Excel when people have tried to achieve the "excel as a backend": - Excel was not designed to act as a (headless) backend - you should not do it because it will crash - million rows limitation - understanding what a Excel tool does is almost impossible to explain to other people, which makes sharing and maintaining the tool almost impossible

Using other types of spreadsheets like Google's is quite complex due to traditional way of representing data as cells and having the 2D format that is very functional for visual inspection but somewhat challenging when you interact through API: hopefully you take my word for it because I have done it.

I know many people have implemented many tools using Excel - with or without VBA. So my question is which kind of tools or services you would create with Excel if you could turn the an Excel sheet into a backend?

[themerone]

I recently sat in on a demo of a complete accounting and invoicing system implemented entirely in excel.

Such things should not exist and be nuked from orbit.

Excel should not be used to create anything but spreadsheets and charts.

[jarirajari]

I agree that no system should be implemented in excel, but for many it is a good match to rapidly test or model things, or to write handy tools.

[warrenm]

So ... Excel instead of AirTable?

Excel is not the "best" tool for most of what it is made to do

But it is the available tool for the majority of people out there - it is plenty good enough to get most of what most people want to get done with it done ... so they use it

I remember in the late 90s using Excel (5.0, at the time) for a variety of statistical operations

...all of which I was informed by the in-house SPSS expert were "not possible to do" in Excel

Is importing your data into Tableau, or a database and using PowerBI, or into a time-series analysis tool like Splunk or ELK "better"? In the strict sense of the word ... probably

But the point remains: Excel is good enough to get it done

[jarirajari]

True, excellent point about the availability. But homemade sheets are often tools you built yourself for you and not tools that you can buy from a store.

I see AirTable as a rich UI client that sits on top of data - btw, back in the days rich clients was a thing. I am curious how people would use server that is able to do business logic.

[warrenm]

I do not know if it is still the case (because I have not looked in 15+ years), but there used to be all kinds of add-ons you could buy for Excel that had prebuilt forms, charts, macros, etc

[jarirajari]

Hey, thanks! Definitely need to look into Excel add-ins!!

[warrenm]

they were definitely a not-insignificant market in the 90s through mid-00s!

(I bought a couple back in the day, even)