[HN Gopher] Decipad - Like Notion with problem-solving capabilities
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Decipad - Like Notion with problem-solving capabilities
 
Author : g-camargo
Score  : 165 points
Date   : 2022-09-21 14:35 UTC (8 hours ago)
 
web link (www.decipad.com)
w3m dump (www.decipad.com)
 
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Can I afford a
| 
| No.
 
| g-camargo wrote:
| I've been working on Decipad. It's a low-code notebook to tell
| stories with numbers and build interactive models. It's like
| Notion with spreadsheet-like capabilities. You can build and
| publish interactive notebooks for things like forecasting, burn
| rate, a mortgage calculator, or just something fun.
| 
| We're testing with early access users. Would be grateful for any
| feedback if you're interested! Decipad.com
 
  | johnhenry wrote:
  | Is this like formulas (https://www.notion.so/help/formulas) on
  | steroids?
 
    | melony wrote:
    | I think it's more like https://causal.app
 
  | lilyball wrote:
  | Is there any way to try it out interactively without having to
  | sign up for early access? When I loaded the website and I read
  | what it said about changing Discount Rate, I immediately tried
  | clicking around to actually do that and see the change but of
  | course it didn't work.
 
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| I might have been a user if I could access it without signing up
| to try it out.
| 
| Having to give my email, click a link, set up an account, etc.
| just to see what this is to decide if I want to use it, is far
| too high of a barrier to entry.
 
| valyagolev wrote:
| i wonder if it would be cool to have generalized "task"
| management in the form of embedded Prolog-like (basically make
| queries through unification)
 
| r2sk5t wrote:
| Congrats! Whether it's Notion, Google Docs/Sheet/Slides, Coda,
| Figma, Adobe Cloud, iCloud, Slack, Google Drive, One Drive, etc.
| the issue for me is content management and SSO. There is a high
| bar to get anointed to manage content inside a company/team.
| 
| For example, we use Office 365 and OneDrive for file management.
| But, I prefer Keynote over PowerPoint. Saving Keynote to OneDrive
| folders works perfectly fine. Of course that means anyone who
| wants to edit my documents needs OneDrive and Keynote, but that's
| reasonable for our team.
| 
| To use Decipad, Notion, Coda, Google Docs etc. We would need a
| way to manage the documents in OneDrive, an authentication
| mechanism so that the documents can be open and edited from
| OneDrive. Whether it's OneDrive, Box, DropBox, or GDrive my issue
| might be the same for others.
| 
| Just rewrite the software to run on Mac & Windows and save
| documents as files, and then we would give it a try :-)
 
  | Terretta wrote:
  | Or at least the SSO + a full audit trail.
 
| phren0logy wrote:
| Nice! Reminds me of the native MacOS apps Numi and Soulver. But
| being web-based and understanding python opens up a lot of
| interesting possibilities that those apps don't have.
 
| personjerry wrote:
| Be careful, the name sounds a bit like it's a feminine hygiene
| product
 
| ibdf wrote:
| I wish Notion would allow people to build third-party
| plugins/add-ons. This looks really cool but it would be so much
| cooler if it build on top of everything Notion already does.
 
  | djhaskin987 wrote:
  | Yes, but then you would end up with, well, Confluence.
 
    | cheriot wrote:
    | Let's be fair, none of the products mentioned in these
    | comments are as bad as Confluence.
 
| Rafsark wrote:
| That's probably something I would see "on-top" of Notion. I
| really like the formulas on steroid, but having another tool
| inside the company is a bit painful. Notion team could authorize
| add-ons built on top...
 
  | KMnO4 wrote:
  | OTOH, I'm desperate for a tool that's "like Notion, but
  | better", where my primary definition of "better" is that it's
  | not slow/bloated.
  | 
  | If this is lightweight AND has these cool data modelling
  | features then I'm on board.
 
    | vthommeret wrote:
    | They've started to move their iOS app to native views which
    | has made a big difference so seems like they're prioritizing
    | performance.
 
  | jitl wrote:
  | Maybe one day! I'd like us to do something like this but it's
  | probably more than a year in the future.
 
  | k__ wrote:
  | If it less laggy than Notion, that would already be enough for
  | me.
 
| unwoundmouse wrote:
| What did you use for UI, is this tailwind? looks really clean
 
| zbhoy wrote:
| This is really interesting! I have been keeping an eye on the low
| code number modeling scene and it's great to see a mix on the
| usual spreadsheet + X.
| 
| I applied for early access but I wanted to ask how you balance
| the amount of spreadsheet and modeling you expose vs keeping it
| out of sight?
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | g-camargo wrote:
  | Thanks a bunch! It's really early stages here... but we're so
  | excited with the possibilities this tool will unlock.
  | 
  | It's been a big topic that we talk about a lot as a team as we
  | continue to build. We ultimately want to give creators the
  | control on how they want to share and present their model. And,
  | give the reader/collaborator some controls on how they want to
  | consume it. But, we also want to make it easier for people to
  | understand what different calculations mean and how the model
  | works so they can learn and collaborate more effectively. One
  | approach we've been exploring as we build Decipad is a more
  | human way to write calculations that are easier to read and
  | understand.
 
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Nice to see something follow in the footsteps of
| 
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TK_Solver
 
| leobg wrote:
| Would like to see a demo video. Reading through the landing page
| doesn't really tell me what this does, or how are using it would
| work.
 
  | SCLeo wrote:
  | Agreed. Or, since it is an interactive application, it would be
  | very nice to just show a interactable demo on the front page.
 
| skybrian wrote:
| Too bad the documentation isn't online. What does it use for
| formulas? How do you share notebooks? Do you need the app to view
| them?
| 
| I'm pretty happy with Observable's notebooks. It means you need
| to know JavaScript, though, and furthermore learn Observable's
| quirks [1] and a plotting library.
| 
| [1] https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/observables-not-
| javas...
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | ryanianian wrote:
  | Ya, weird. The landing page gives almost no information about
  | what it's like to actually use it. Not even an example
  | workbook/file to tinker with the possible finished-products.
 
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(page generated 2022-09-21 23:00 UTC)