81–90 of 238 posts
I've recently been toying with the idea of turning my overly complicated weightlifting Excel into an overly complicated me-only webapp / testflight app. It can't be worse than Excel for iOS!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for discussing this openly, it can be a real bummer to write something, test it, have something work up to a point then fail due to situations outside your control. You probably just saved me about 20 hours of coding.
to be fair, 25k rows seems like a few more rows than I'd use a spreadsheet for
What began as a DIY project during lockdown scaled quickly to Mexico City, the Dominican Republic, and Barcelona, processing over 30,000 tests the day after New Year’s Eve. Using Airtable, an Airtable extension called miniextensions.com, and tools like Docusign, Make, Sendgrid, and Twilio, the solution ended up supporting over 1 million tests. I handled all technical aspects, support, and training myself.
Since the solution was meant to be temporary, I prioritized speed and reliability. Airtable’s relational database capabilities were crucial, especially compared to spreadsheets, for managing multiple linked tables and automations. Airtable also offers a REST API and a pretty amazing self- actualizing database schema that can be copied into tools like GPT or Claude for added context. You can build powerful tools with its scripts, interfaces, and automations.
That said, Airtable is best for use cases with fewer than 250,000 records per month. Above 100,000 records, the web platform’s performance can suffer, though there are workarounds. It’s perfect for small to medium-sized businesses needing custom API integrations for CRMs or internal tools.
If you’re interested, I wrote a brief case study about the project here: https://rashidazarang.com/covid-testing.
On a related note, today I built a cool Airtable automation using ChatGPT and custom scripts. By filling out a corporate email in a form, the system scrapes the web for details like company name, address, phone, fax, and more, which then populates the CRM automatically. I’m still experimenting and plan to make a YouTube video about it soon. Here’s the loom video I sent to a friend about it: https://www.loom.com/share/b9ddbefbdce5434da378667fc2079d00?...
I've built quite a few dashboards while working on proof-of-concept feature/product engineering. Even though people often think I'm joking, almost always the backend database was a Google Sheet. Google Sheets has great API support, easy to write functionality, convenient read and file dumps, works well with Pandas/SQL, and has a universally appreciated UX. Data validation can be annoying if the "admin" directly enter…
Unfortunately I got pissed off badly because I found out that ordering directly I was treated like a second class customer - where I expected the opposite.
If I order directly they know I will not leave negative reviews.
I really wanted to pay directly for the same service. I wasn’t expecting to get better service and definitely I wasn’t expecting being treated like dirt.
So sorry but I will keep using app ordering services because I simply get better quality of food and better delivery times.
I've built quite a few dashboards while working on proof-of-concept feature/product engineering. Even though people often think I'm joking, almost always the backend database was a Google Sheet. Google Sheets has great API support, easy to write functionality, convenient read and file dumps, works well with Pandas/SQL, and has a universally appreciated UX. Data validation can be annoying if the "admin" directly enter…
these 2 tools is great for easy/fast prototype various project and honestly its kinda hard to replace