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Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

firebase.googleblog.com

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Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#151

Post by asciimike »

nihonde wrote: post #141
mayop100 wrote: post #4

(firebase founder here) I’m thrilled to finally be able to show everyone what we’ve been working on over the last 18 months! When I said “big things are coming” in the HN comments back when our acquisition was announced, I was talking about today : ) We’re really excited about these new products. There are some big advances on the development side, with a new storage solution, integrated push messaging, remote config…

This is good news for me. File storage and push messaging are particularly nice. As a user of the Firebase iOS SDK, I was wondering why the SDK was getting so stale. The Quickstart guide used deprecated Swift, didn't offer Carthage support, etc. I looked at the new docs, and I guess they ditched the old Quickstart format in favor of a bunch of examples. At least the code seems to be up to date, which is somewhat enco…

Firebase iOS engineer here:

First off, I'm glad you like the new feature additions. We'd love to hear your feedback on Storage and FCM :)

Secondly, I'd love Carthage support as well, but there are a few things (built into Carthage) that prevent us from adding this: 1. Carthage requires iOS 8+ (dynamic frameworks only). Firebase supports 7+, and we build static "frameworks", so we'd lose that (which is still relevant in a lot of our developers). 2. Carthage is designed for open source (git based origins only), and while we'd love to get there, we currently ship everything as a pre-built framework.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#152

Post by pier25 »

mbleigh wrote: post #137
Blixz wrote: post #24

So, Still no offline persistence for JS. What a huge disappointment.

Check out my I/O talk on Friday (Progressive Web Apps on Firebase). While the Firebase Web SDK doesn't support persistent offline just yet, we do have some new ways to get the job done. https://events.google.com/io2016/schedule?filters=Firebase&s...

Um... what about this?

https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/web/offline-capabi...

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#153

Post by vinaybn »

fredthedinosaur wrote: post #5

When will it support a count query? now to be able to count number of children I have to download all the data. Count is such an important feature for me.

You could run your writes as transactions that increments a count wherever you need one.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#155

Post by unclebucknasty »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #115
manigandham wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Cloud is way more advanced than both AWS and Azure in many ways and just as big in capacity, if not customers yet. Cloud computing will likely be more profitable than ads in the future for them and they announced billions in new investment just a few months ago to build out the platform further. It's not going anywhere.

Microsoft put billions into Windows Phone and many (including me) think it's superior to iOS and Android, but what's its market share now? What I mean is, even if it is technically better, will Google Cloud get customers? AWS has a huge head start with significant mindshare, and Microsoft has its pre-existing enterprise customers sewed up. With tech funding drying up, where will Google find its customers?

Yeah, the challenge is that it seems to rely on Google services (not just libraries) at the app layer in a way that screams lock-in.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#156

Post by fieryeagle »

mybigsword wrote: post #19

way too risky to use it for startups. Google may discontinue this project at any time and you have to spend months to rewrite everything for another database. IF google open source it and we will be able to install it on premise and patch without Google, that would be ok. So, I would recommend to use PostgreSQL instead.

Same argument for enterprises can be had here. Way too risky to let the existing house of cards (stack) to perch atop a product that can be discontinued at anytime (I'm looking at you, Microsoft!). Google needs more revenues since ad money is shrinking so they would make sure that you get vendor-locked. Once shit happens, you are provided with a more expensive alternative, or consultancy services provided by certified vendors (again, looking at you, Microsoft!).

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#157

Post by unclebucknasty »

velohx wrote: post #57
mybigsword wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot agree with that. Google Cloud services are way too small comparing to AWS or Azure and they don't make a lot of money with it. They can discontinue it easily.

This is sarcasm, right? Here's some more equivalent sarcasm: Gmail and Google Search could discontinue easily.

You're comparing their mature businesses to their nascent cloud business. Their market share in the latter is still a fraction of the leaders'. It's very possible that Google may "lose the cloud".

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#158

Post by unclebucknasty »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #155
throwawaykf05 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft put billions into Windows Phone and many (including me) think it's superior to iOS and Android, but what's its market share now? What I mean is, even if it is technically better, will Google Cloud get customers? AWS has a huge head start with significant mindshare, and Microsoft has its pre-existing enterprise customers sewed up. With tech funding drying up, where will Google find its customers?

Yeah, the challenge is that it seems to rely on Google services (not just libraries) at the app layer in a way that screams lock-in.

Downvote? Is it not reliant on Google services?

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#159

Post by mbleigh »

pier25 wrote: post #152
mbleigh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out my I/O talk on Friday (Progressive Web Apps on Firebase). While the Firebase Web SDK doesn't support persistent offline just yet, we do have some new ways to get the job done. https://events.google.com/io2016/schedule?filters=Firebase&s...

Um... what about this? https://firebase.google.com/docs/database/web/offline-capabi...

The Firebase JS SDK currently supports non-persistent offline. So long as you keep the tab open, Firebase works great offline!

However, if you go offline and then try to refresh the content, none of it will be persistently stored or accessible until you go back online.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#160

Post by calebm »

mayop100 wrote: post #4

(firebase founder here) I’m thrilled to finally be able to show everyone what we’ve been working on over the last 18 months! When I said “big things are coming” in the HN comments back when our acquisition was announced, I was talking about today : ) We’re really excited about these new products. There are some big advances on the development side, with a new storage solution, integrated push messaging, remote config…

Nice job with Firebase! I've got a friend who is an entry-level front-end developer, and he was able to develop this grocery list app with Firebase on his own: https://collaboralist.github.io/ (source code: https://github.com/KidIcarus1337/collaboralist), attesting to Firebase's claim of providing a Backend-as-a-Service.
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