Honestly, what's missing is a GUI builder for Postgres that non-programmers can use.
Others have mentioned Filemaker and Access, and I think that's exactly right - non-programmers can understand datatypes, that's not the issue. The issue is a UI they can use and (more importantly) iterate on themselves.
One of the major strengths of spreadsheets is "touchability" - your stuff is right there. Psql is the opposite - nothing is visible without the right incantation, and non-programmers can't do much about that.
Re:Use Spreadsheets Everywhere
by andrew_jef on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @01:17PM
(#28051722)
I've read that nocodb is aiming to solve the issue that you mentioned
Isn't this what FileMaker Pro is all about?
It seems like there should be a way to combine the two. Maybe a minimal set of optional constraints (like a separation between data and code) like you proposed would be a good starting point. Make tables a first-class citizen backed by an embedded SQLite database (or something similar); let users write real SQL to query tables in formulas, maybe update the file format a bit to make it easier for programs to parse and access concurrently. Could be an interesting project...