For those interested in this kind of service there are a variety of others, including our own (spire.io), as well as Pusher, PubNub, and others.
Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
111–120 of 148 posts
Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#112Looks similar to what Meteor was trying to achieve?
Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#113Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#114Seems slightly misleading with the pitch about "no servers". More like, "proprietary Javascript framework locked to proprietary hosted cloud service, no information about pricing".
Not that I begrudge anybody the chance to make some money, but along with Meteor I feel like there's a slightly deceptive nature to this kind of thing where the home page is emblazoned with "look, it's all free!" when in fact there's an unknown price to pay down the line.
Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could say that just about any software development platform. If it makes building software easier, it makes competition easier. And if building apps is easier, it really doesn't matter what stack your app uses - it's going to get easier to "clone", so you may as well use whatever platform gives you the best results. Other than that, you could either make your business, rather than your technology, more competitiv…
It's not that client-side applications are easier to reverse-engineer. If the application is all client-side, it can literally just be downloaded and reused by a would-be competitor.
have you ever looked at code obfuscated by proprietary tools? By your logic it's easy to reverse-engineer and copy Gmail - good luck with that
Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither does obfuscated and minified javascript.
Yes, it does. Where do you think the source code is?
It may not be at the same level as disassembling binary code w/ IDA or what have you, but un-minifying or un-obfuscating JavaScript is not a trivial exercise by any means.
(If I were in a nitpicking mood I would also point out that the source is what is fed into the minifier or obfuscator, not what comes out.)
Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#117A few weeks ago, I wrote about (and presented at RubyNation) on why I think a "dumb backend" is a really bad idea: http://planscope.io/blog/2012/03/25/rails-is-more-than-an-ap...
Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#118Here's my big concern: If my entire app is client-based JavaScript, wouldn't that make cloning my app as simple as copying all of the JavaScript and other asset files and then associating them with another firebase account -- perhaps modifying them some so they dont't get banned? It seems like it lowers the barrier to competition a bit too much for me.
I keep wondering this myself. On my resident JS-only app, the only thing that I can think of that's keeping someone from ripping off my code and duping the site is that nobody cares enough to try.
Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#119I used Firebase to build thereelbox.com, and enjoyed it thoroughly. It took 2-3 hours from starting into the documentation to completed/nobugs/pushed to production. Credit for that speed goes entirely to Firebase. TheReelBox uses Firebase as a sort of API caching layer. This protects against rate limiting on the Rotten Tomatoes API, decreases request time by caching queries to the Fandango-via-YQL API, and eliminates…
Your app actually reminds me of a movie version of my app. Kudos!
Might I recommend incorporating some sort of mechanism to help people figure out a movie to watch?
Re: Show HN: Firebase, a scalable real-time backend
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it does. Where do you think the source code is?
It may not be at the same level as disassembling binary code w/ IDA or what have you, but un-minifying or un-obfuscating JavaScript is not a trivial exercise by any means. (If I were in a nitpicking mood I would also point out that the source is what is fed into the minifier or obfuscator, not what comes out.)
un-minifying javascript is very trivial. you just copy and paste it into an online javascript beautifier. you won't get the original un-obfuscated source with original comments, but you'll get readable javasript that you can easily parse visually.