I’m seeing so many google docs/sheets ideas on HN lately. Maybe there’s a new trend! This on, the database one and someone linked to one that turns it into an AppStore ready app!
I made http://hexopress.com to run my blog from Google Docs. Simply because it's neater to have all my docs in one place. Also, I could blog right from my comfort area, instead of using the editor that comes with different blogging platforms.
Also noticed this recently - whats driving this? Non-developers looking to prototype or build actual products without developer involvement? Democratisation of technology?
I would say ease of use and cost. A friend of mine has been using Google Sheets for years to power some small bits of data on his website. Maintaining and running his site costs nothing but the domain since he uses Netlify for CI w/Github and hosting with Google Sheets for dynamic data.
Very easy to set up a small database that non-tech people can also access. It's also a very light-weight way to implement a CMS with users and version control etc.
Sheets and Docs are the primary office apps used internally by thousands of Googlers. Seems unlikely that Google would kill them and give everyone Microsoft products.
I also posted one recently, a plugin to connect to APIs directly in Google Sheets [1]. The primary use case I had in mind was for people looking to grab data from various APIs, in which case it's pretty clear why someone would want to directly access the output in Google Sheets. However, I was surprised to discover a lot of people are actually using it as an alternative to CMSes like Wordpress, like bolting it together to other plugins and sheets to create their own apps. It's a trend for sure, I think it all falls under the "low code/no code" movement.
