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Maybe it's possible to find ways to better represent relational data?

Two interesting approaches:

- Ultrorg [1] attempts to represent relational databases in an excel-like format. You can build a query by editing the header of the table, and then edit the results in place.

- Tableau [2][3] is a visualisation construction tool, where users can describe a graph by assigning properties to rows or columns. The result can be a table of visualisations, for example a scatterplot matrix.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGzJ8F9rC1s [2]: https://www.tableau.com/products/desktop [3]: it's based on Polaris https://doi.org/10.1109/2945.981851

⬐ foobiekr

Tableau is pretty amazing but oh lord is it painful to pick up someone’s work.

⬐ lioeters

Also of interest, an article from the research project on which Ultorg is based:

Expressive Query Construction through Direct Manipulation of Nested Relational Results

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/research/sieuferd_sigmod2... (PDF)

⬐ arnarbi

The part of the demo where he creates a computed field inside the sub-result (in a hierarchy), and then uses that in an aggregate at the next level above is excellent. And then he can still see the constituent rows contributing to the aggregate and continue adding filters on them.

I am sold, even as someone comfortable with writing complex queries.

⬐ emj

Thanks! The setup for that is 20 minutes in https://youtu.be/tGzJ8F9rC1s?t=1280 and does that second part 6 minutes after, with more complex filters later on.

⬐ jhgb

Anyone here nostalgic for Dabble DB? That's probably the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this.

⬐ beaconstudios

This makes a lot of sense. In my tinkering with what a radically clarified form of programming would look like, I've come to believe that any such effort would have to be built around a database at its core. Personally, I think graph databases are a more intuitive fit for how we think about objects and their relationships to each other, but relational dbs are pretty close too.

⬐ convolvatron

they should be really two views of the same thing?

⬐ beaconstudios

A graph and tables are similar perspectives but different in a number of really important ways. Tables generally lend themselves best to analysis of homogeneous data within a small number of tables for example, while graph databases make it easy to perform deep queries across many different schemas while still keeping the resultant objects separate.

⬐ CharlesW

Have you ever checked out FileMaker[0]? It's a database-centric app builder, and I have fond memories of building cool stuff with it back in the 1990s. (FileMaker is 36 years old!)

[0] https://www.claris.com/filemaker/

⬐ beaconstudios

I'm aware of its existence but have never really used it unfortunately.

⬐ eternityforest

Seems very much needed. Direct access to production databases with current tools is clearly not safe.

⬐ akvadrako

Just skipped to the middle of that video and see the other 3 participants are pretty weird. They are constantly holding big smiles with their teeth showing. That can't be real.

⬐ cdcarter

Those are photographs of the participants.

⬐ ivank

http://www.ultorg.com/

https://twitter.com/ultorg