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Show HN: I built an open-source SwiftUI app with an Airtable back end

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Re: Show HN: I built an open-source SwiftUI app with an Airtable back end

#21

Post by travbrack »

latchkey wrote: post #16

I went through something like this. I was thinking oh... airtable saves me from having to develop the crud aspects of my app! Boy was I wrong. For super super basic stuff, Airtable is fine to code against their API. But as soon as you get into anything more complicated, you are going to get screwed. They have a 5 concurrent connection limit and no real transactions. Want to insert 6 rows quickly across two tables? No…

From TFA:

> I wouldn't recommend using Airtable to store fast-moving data but as a means of storing strings, images, positions of views, and general data that won't get updated very often, Airtable could be a potential option for you.

Re: Show HN: I built an open-source SwiftUI app with an Airtable back end

#24

Post by latchkey »

travbrack wrote: post #21
latchkey wrote: post #16

I went through something like this. I was thinking oh... airtable saves me from having to develop the crud aspects of my app! Boy was I wrong. For super super basic stuff, Airtable is fine to code against their API. But as soon as you get into anything more complicated, you are going to get screwed. They have a 5 concurrent connection limit and no real transactions. Want to insert 6 rows quickly across two tables? No…

From TFA: > I wouldn't recommend using Airtable to store fast-moving data but as a means of storing strings, images, positions of views, and general data that won't get updated very often, Airtable could be a potential option for you.

Certainly, I knew what I was getting into and my application actually fell under that category. But even storing glacier data is difficult if you can't store more than 5 things a second.

At the end of the day, I knowingly made the decision to experiment with it. I learned a bunch from it. Glad I did it.

Re: Show HN: I built an open-source SwiftUI app with an Airtable back end

#25

Post by settsu »

Something I haven't seen mentioned is how great their API documentation is. Each database (AKA "base" in Airtable parlance) gets a generated set of docs that uses the actual names of the tables and fields (and the field types), as well as javascript examples that use your real data as sample output values.

Re: Show HN: I built an open-source SwiftUI app with an Airtable back end

#26

Post by pezo1919 »

seancoleman wrote: post #18

Airtable-as-a-Database is absolutely delightful. It comes with an advanced admin back-end for other team members to view and manage data. For many apps, instead of starting with RDBMS tables, I consider Airtable and strategically move to an RDBMS where Airtable doesn't scale (organizationally, latency, security, row-count, etc.) I've most recently built https://design.org using Airtable. I think it's performant and r…

What does Airtable give you over gsheets for you? I use gsheets but I am interested.

Re: Show HN: I built an open-source SwiftUI app with an Airtable back end

#27

Post by pezo1919 »

whoisjuan wrote: post #3

I already use Airtable as a backend for some small internal tools. It definitely does the job but there are some moments where I feel it might be easier and more flexible just to create something on Firebase. From an API perspective storing and retrieving objects in both is equally as easy. The only reason I went with Airtable is because I needed a GUI to add data manually.

What does Airtable give you over gsheets for you? I use gsheets but I am interested.

Re: Show HN: I built an open-source SwiftUI app with an Airtable back end

#28

Post by zapzupnz »

kine wrote: post #20
bloudermilk wrote: post #17

This is a great concept! I'm not surprised to see you getting flak for building on Airtable, but as a "real developer" leaning heavily on low/no code lately I wanted to share how well it's worked for our open source team over the last few months. In terms of scale, it has supported dozens of editors, hundreds of public submissions, and several thousand rows of data. We have also successfully scripted a number of use…

lol "real developer." I was the Director of Engineering for Bump, a YCW18 company. I've run mobile teams as well. I just wanted to mix two tools together, no need to hop into who's real and who's not a real developer here. If you want more: https://linkedin.com/in/zackshapiro

You realise that GP's "real developer" wasn't a challenge to your pride, yes? It wasn't to denigrate you or your skills, just to give context for the remainder of their own post about their own experiences — as an experienced developer using tools that may not necessarily be aimed at experienced developers.
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