On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 2:36 AM, doright <doug.stodd...@gmail.com> wrote: > > this is fascinating too. I've been using Google Spreadsheets too, and for > me that's one of the massive attractions of the GAE platform; the easy > accessibility to a rich API set that has very broad user appeal & > familiarity; spreadsheets, calendar, maps etc. I actually use the database > for my calendar coz its at the core of my system, but use spreadsheets to > let customers put their bike fleets into and out of the system. Coz 99% of > my clients were using spreadsheets before, as you say it makes sense to > leverage a familiar environment for them. I use asynchronous updates to keep > the app in sync with the spreadsheet. (though once loaded they mainly > interact with my app). I even wrote a whole backup system using > spreadsheets and Task Queues coz when I started there were very limited > backup options in Java (not sure I'd recommend the approach though ;)
I have to admit that I'm *really* disappointed with the Spreadsheet API. I expected an API that resembled, well, a spreadsheet - some sort of tabular structure. Instead it's a wacky Atom feed (actually, multiple wacky Atom feeds) which requires an enormous amount of work to parse and put into an actual tabular structure. I really feel like Google isn't even trying with this one. We use a Google Spreadsheet to hold all the master data for https://www.voo.st/compare I wrote a python script that sucks the data down and reformats it into html that gets included with our deployments. Overall the workflow is great and way better than trying to maintain a shared document in git or dropbox or whatnot... but the script is janky as hell. Jeff -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
