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Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid

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Re: Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid

#71

Post by alexeichemenda »

joshdance wrote: post #54
EvanMiller wrote: post #45

This looks like a nice product. Software companies have been struggling to make a mass-market database program ever since Lotus 1-2-3 (the "3" was a database), but the spreadsheet remains king, despite the fact that for storing structured data, it is almost as bad as a Word document with macros. So I'll be rooting for you. One complaint: Referring to your Basic plan as being "Free forever" is a bit disingenuous. In m…

>Referring to your Basic plan as being "Free forever" is a bit disingenuous How so? I haven't had a company ever tell me this then start charging. Oftentimes they go out of business, but that is a different problem. :)

By the area codes provided by EvanMiller (415 = San Francisco, 650 = Palo Alto) I don't think he meant "free first, then they started charging". I think he meant "got acquired" / "pivoted" "went out of business".

Re: Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid

#74

Post by username3 »

aofstad wrote: post #40
kdr77 wrote: post #39

Why does it require Google auth?

We require that you oauth in via a Google account purely for authentication right now. We don't request permissions for your email, calendar, contacts, or other data--only your name, email, and profile picture (which is used in the UI). We're working on support for email/password based signup, as well as oauth support for other services.

I hesitate entering my credentials because of http://furbo.org/2014/09/24/in-app-browsers-considered-harmf...

Re: Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid

#76

Post by throwaway001920 »

fdsary wrote: post #38
kbd wrote: post #31

The "instantly syncs updates with all users" bit caught my eye. I always wonder how people go about implementing that. Asana works that way, and they have their own framework named Luna that does some functional reactive magic. Meteor, which I've been working with a lot lately and have really enjoyed using, was also created by some ex-Asana people, and enables the same type of real-time synced updates. I was just won…

Websocket would be the solution to doing that, especially cross platform. Meteor is built on top of websockets, just saying...

You couldn't be more wrong. Yes, websockets would make this easier and more seamless than (say) polling, but the "big deal" is that your entire model changes from:

- There's a source of truth (server) and a single client at a time, ever.

To:

- There can be up to hundreds of clients at the same time, all having write access to the same data.

Meaning:

- Your old fashioned models don't quite cut it - you need something to handle changes happening locally [having to be propagated to the server/network ("committed") and potentially be rejected or changed], and at the same time receive remote updates, apply them to the local objects.

- You're going to have conflicting writes. You don't want to have global locking in such a system, no matter how fine-grained (cell, in this case, I suppose); enter: Merge conflict resolution code (you'll have fun with that). Does it happen on the server? Client? How are conflicting writes resolved? Can the client handle just about any write having to be cancelled, and instead accept another change to the object?

- Saving history states for all (ok, most) of your data, so that things can be rolled back. Kind of necessary when you can have a spreadsheet shared by 100 people, and any of them could delete the entire thing.

Do these features ring a bell? Yes, we're talking about a distributed version control system here, but "you just saying" that all it is, is bidirectional communication? That's why you're being downvoted.

Re: Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid

#77

Post by lambda »

joshdance wrote: post #54
EvanMiller wrote: post #45

This looks like a nice product. Software companies have been struggling to make a mass-market database program ever since Lotus 1-2-3 (the "3" was a database), but the spreadsheet remains king, despite the fact that for storing structured data, it is almost as bad as a Word document with macros. So I'll be rooting for you. One complaint: Referring to your Basic plan as being "Free forever" is a bit disingenuous. In m…

>Referring to your Basic plan as being "Free forever" is a bit disingenuous How so? I haven't had a company ever tell me this then start charging. Oftentimes they go out of business, but that is a different problem. :)

Let's see. There was Apple's iTools, .mac, MobileMe, and now iCloud service (sort of one big evolving service, with some bits chopped off or replaced at various points in time), which has gone from free to paid to freemium.

There's Google Apps for your Domain, which killed off its free service in favor of the $5/user per month service.

Ning shut down their free service and switched to a paid only model.

DynDNS also shut down their free service, only offering paid.

How many more examples do you need?

Re: Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid

#78

Post by yourad_io »

kolev wrote: post #17

Great... but could be useless without an API.

This could be a tremendous hit, even without the API. There's billions managed via Excel spreadsheets [citation needed] and Airtable seems to bridge the "spreadsheet-ux/database-power" gap well for those use cases.

Re: Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid

#79

Post by ivankirigin »

Congrats this looks awesome!

Have you thought much about automation? For example, it would be awesome if every email I send/receive could create or update a row anchored on the recipient/source email.

Seems niche, but building that means I could completely automate what RelateIQ does best. That's just one example, and the point of this kind of automation is that it enables any workflow I need.

Re: Show HN: Airtable, a real-time spreadsheet-database hybrid

#80

Post by howsta »

ivankirigin wrote: post #79

Congrats this looks awesome! Have you thought much about automation? For example, it would be awesome if every email I send/receive could create or update a row anchored on the recipient/source email. Seems niche, but building that means I could completely automate what RelateIQ does best. That's just one example, and the point of this kind of automation is that it enables any workflow I need.

Thanks! Yes, it's definitely on the roadmap. We will support certain types of integrations/automations natively, and also plug in to Zapier/IFTTT for others
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