I'm there with you... maybe, maybe using the sheets API to create a simpler front end for very specific use cases, like an individual seeing their assignment for the day, or maybe texting everyone that info.
As much as people will rely on databse (rdbms/sql) backed applicatons, in the end a lot of the business world runs on spreadsheets... Not only that, but excel, and I'm assuming plenty of others have integration points for pulling data from other resources... Spreadsheet masters can do very impressive things with what appears to be a simple tool.
I'd add one point to this, as someone who voraciously fights against complexity at every turn, more and more as I get older. I've experienced times where leadership/management will assume that you're fighting against the complex solution simply because you don't grasp or understand it. It's irritating at best.
The longest lived projects and solutions I've worked on have always been the simplest, easiest to replace solutions. Often derived from simple tests scenarios or solutions that just work and get shifted over without much re-work.
What's somewhat funny, with this is that AI code assistants have actually helped a lot with continuing this approach for me... I can create a stand alone solution to work on a library or component, work through the problems, then copy the component/library into the actual work project it was for. I'm in a really locked down internalized environment, so using AI for component dev is on my own hardware... but the resulting work is a piece that can be brought in as-is. No exposure of internal data/resources.
I don't think I'll have a level of trust to "one-shot" or vibe code solutions from AI, but leveraging the ability to spin up a project as a sample to test a component/library is pretty great to say the least.
To add to this, sometimes leadership will assume (or even imply) that there's some laziness involved in not wanting to jump immediately on-board with the complex proposal.
I often end up saying, "I can build this, and I will build this if product insists on it, but first let me suggest an alternative ordering of deliverables that starts with a simple implementation and moves towards this one." In almost every case, that simple implementation is still what's in production years later.
Lead time for "how long until we can start using it" is one that is hard for a lot of folks to really take into consideration. There are terms for this, "earned value" and such. I have rarely seen them used in such a way that the planning actually worked out, long term.
I accidentally nuked my hosted server's network stack with a config error... my bigger mistake was generating a massive random password for the root account... the remote terminal management console didn't support pasting and the default config only gave you like 30s to login.... not fun at all.
Script all the things. double-check your scripts... always be backing up.
Also a gentle reminder that backups without periodic drills are just binary blobs. I had an instance where for some reason my Borg backups where corrupted. Only caught them with periodic drills.
Even then... the social cohesion in this country has lapsed so much in my half century of life that I can't help but think maybe we could use a little propaganda to come together more as a country.
I can't help but remember one example of my youth to my son's youth a few decades later. When I was in school, the position on fights is if you have the ability to intercede to stop it, you have a responsibility to do so... by the time my son was in school it was, "don't get involved, get a teacher or call the police."
It's just such a stark contrast to me that it's hard to fathom where things are now a couple decades further still from when I was a young kid in later elementary school and Jr. High. Without a shared society and cohesion, we're largely doomed as a society. I realize that some people actually want this, but I really don't.
I want our nation and our people to be successful.
I too am very concerned about a collapse of cohesion, mainly focused on agreement that "lies are wrong", "people given authority should be held to higher standards", "taking bribes should be punished" and "dictatorship is a bad idea". These principles are in trouble these days, as a shocking segment of people have spent a few years demonstrating they don't care. [0]
In fact, those same issues apply to your school scenario! (For the sake of argument, let's wave-away other factors like larger school-sizes, general nostalgia, easier access to deadly weapons, etc.)
Consider: Why are kids being instructed to run off and get a teacher?
It's not because eagle-eyed Mrs. Frizzle is trusted to take in the battlefield at a glance, unsheathing the old yardstick by the whiteboard, this tan-colored Excalibur falling upon the necks of the wicked in defense of the just. Well, at least not where I went to school.
It's actually the opposite, school authorities [1] are summoned because they are not trusted! They are not trusted to carefully investigate and rule fairly when it comes to the former-bystander "doing the right thing." Or, for that matter, trusted to prevent retribution and escalation.
_________
[0] Or at any rate, they weirdly place those principles beneath other stuff like "gay people can't partner up" or *checks notes* "the largest deportation operation in US history".
[1] Teachers, staff, but also indirectly the parents of those involved.
Why turn this into a divisive Trump thing? I'm literally talking about trying to bring the country closer together and the response is just more divisiveness...
The article is a divisive Trump thing about how we cannot have free media anymore because the FCC is censoring stuff.
Your comment about citizenship and tolerance makes sense, but that's also under direct attack by the Trump administration. They literally just forcefully coerced the scouts into dropping the exact things you are advocating for from their program.
There's no real path towards tolerating that and also having a tolerant society. This is the main weakness of liberal democracies, and it's being exploited to tear our institutions down.
Being libertarian minded, very classically liberal... I think most of these institutions might not need to have existed in the first place.
As an example, public funding for PBS... when all you need to is watch the PBS coverage of the SoTU address to see a perfect example in that it was indeed a partisan organization that shouldn't be getting public funding... even if I don't agree with a lot of Republican positions.
They've also been attacking most private universities and all of the privately held media and computing platforms.
As a libertarian, I don't see how you can argue that no private entities should be allowed to have freedom of speech.
Also, I wasn't talking about public funding. I was talking about the federal government illegally soliciting bribes and intimidating private organizations into implementing illegal government policies on their behalf.
I say this as a former First Class scout, the entire thing is a racket. The "point" of Boy Scouts is to make you associate pointless meritocratic flair with actual accomplishment. It is a conditioning and propaganda pipeline with the purpose of stimulating enlistment.
The Boy Scouts were not an apolitical fun-fair, which became pretty glaringly obvious when the Army recruiters came by to meet with middle-schoolers. If you didn't enlist, you probably didn't stick around to earn your Eagle scout.
I think there's some value basic survival skills, but this is pretty removed from modern scouts. It's mostly a recruitment tool and tbf the shift has been awkward in trying to capture the market that "Girl Scouts" carved out.
The last generation of Intel Macbooks was so bad... the i9 I was assigned from my job at the time would constantly go in and out of thermal throttling, making the whole experience effectively useless... It was also so locked down, I couldn't apply any mods to be able to underclock/volt the thing to something reasonable.
I really do hope that Linux becomes an option in more workplaces without being too locked down for developers.
The keyboard and touchpad experience are nearly identical between the two... not nearly as good as old IBM Thinkpads used to be, but that's a trade with IMO the much better touchpad experience on Mac.
That said, I just don't think I can keep buying Apple hardware, just not a fan of the company... I only begrudgingly use Android as there isn't a reasonable, more open option.
I'll probably stick with my M1 air for personal use a couple more years then pass it on. My daughter is still using my now 13yo rMBP with 16gb/512gb. I wish the ram and storage upgrades on mac weren't so overpriced.
Apple has their supply lines locked in a few years ahead of time... they likely won't see downward pressure for a couple years still. Not that they might not still take advantage... though downward sales pressure is a trade off too.
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