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Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

firebase.googleblog.com

201–210 of 214 posts

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#201

Is user email confirmation finally supported by Firebase? Last time I checked it wasn't.

Hi dmitriz! Yes. We have it (currently in iOS and Web, soon on Android), and we're eager to get feedback and work to improve it!

If you try it out, ping me at alfongj at google dot com and let me know what you think!

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#202
post #195
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use any Google Cloud product with Firebase so you have access to Cloud Functions. https://cloud.google.com/functions/

I've been eyeing this. Can we kick off a Cloud Function via Firebase Cloud Messaging?

Hey.. PM for Cloud Functions here.

Short answer is no (well.. not without an intermediate proxy of some sort), but we're in the process of providing direct integration with Cloud Functions across many of the services that fall under the Firebase umbrella. So stay tuned!

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We spend months to migrate our product to PostgreSQL Which means you presumably saved months initially by using Azure, and got your product to market sooner. Everyone should be aware of the dangers of lock-in, and should carefully consider the value of it vs. the liability they're taking on. But I wouldn't say never use products like this. The value-add can be significant, even taking into account the fact that you…

That MIGHT be true, but it's not apparent from their statement. Just because it costs N to build a product on technology X and costs M to migrate an existing product to technology Y does not mean that it would have cost N + M to implement the product on technology Y in the first place.

You are correct of course, my point is that even if cost(implementing Y originally) < cost(implementing X and later migrating to Y) it may still be worth it, because the cost has been deferred. Time is often a lot more valuable in early stages of a startup.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#204
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been eyeing this. Can we kick off a Cloud Function via Firebase Cloud Messaging?

Hey.. PM for Cloud Functions here. Short answer is no (well.. not without an intermediate proxy of some sort), but we're in the process of providing direct integration with Cloud Functions across many of the services that fall under the Firebase umbrella. So stay tuned!

That will be awesome! We're running background jobs on a VPS right now and figured we could change that to a Firebase Queue -> Self hosted Director / Proxy service -> Google Pub / Sub -> Google Cloud Functions. Obviously the more direct route would save us some complexity!

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#205

Firebase is an incredibly powerful tool, and in a sense is a "democratizing force" in web development. Now anyone can build a complete web application without needing to know anything about setting up servers, content delivery networks, AWS (which is still quite difficult to use), and scaling. I teach kids as young as 10 years old to build iOS apps and websites with Firebase - they can develop locally and push to Fir…

yea, anyone can build a web application this way... but how well will it scale?

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#206
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is actually between a product and a service . A service is something that another party provides, and that may - actually, they most definitely will - at some point stop providing, for various reasons. You want to minimize your dependence on any services - especially ones that are not trivially replaceable or that don't come with contractual agreements to cover your costs in case of the service being s…

I totally respect your perspective, but SaaS is gaining popularity because software customers are making an informed decision about the tradeoffs of product vs service as a delivery model, not because service providers are forcing the SaaS model on them. Many customers see value in shifting the operations and support burden to the software vendor. I think it's ultimately good that users have more choice in how they c…

Software customers are sometimes making informed decisions, and sometimes basing their decision on building a platform that has a time horizon of "until we get a lot of funding" or "when we get bought by a larger company". In both cases, that is long enough to not worry about whether the SaaS that forms an integral part of the product will last.

I'm not making a value judgement; I'm pointing out that SaaS is often picked for only its short-term benefits.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#207
post #80

As a current Firebase customer, I'm pretty thrilled about all this (especially since I was afraid Google would pull a Facebook here). However, there's quite a bunch of API changes and absolutely no info about how long the old JS library, endpoints, etc etc are to keep working. Should I get stressed out?

(Firebase engineer here) The old SDKs will continue to work! We worked extremely hard to make sure everything was backwards compatible with them. We most certainly do not want to break any existing customer apps. Check out the migration guides [1] to get your app updated to the new SDKs. We understand migrating is not easy or always convenient. If you run into issues or something that used to work seems to be no long…

We are using "Custom" authentication where we issue tokens based on a stored application secret. Is this still supported? I cannot find it in the documentation.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

HN crowd is pro-Google, I feel. I get pounded with downvotes, the moment I speak against the darling of the Bay Area (?)

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvote? Is it not reliant on Google services?

HN crowd is pro-Google, I feel. I get pounded with downvotes, the moment I speak against the darling of the Bay Area (?)

That would definitely explain it.

Never liked the downvoting idea, but if it must be, then it would be nice if people were at least required to comment while downvoting and open themselves to downvotes for their whacked, baseless downvotes.

Re: Firebase expands to become a unified app platform

#210

For Firebase/Google Cloud Platform engineer: does it mean Google Cloud Endpoints is being phased out? if i'm already using Google Cloud Endpoints, should i move to Firebase? what's the advantage?

Hi -- PM for Endpoints here. Endpoints is going strong and will have a release later this year that adds support for hosting APIs on more of our compute offerings (Compute Engine, Container Engine, App Engine Flexible Environments). We'll also be adding features, reporting, etc.

thanks! I just feel Endpoints doesn't get enough love from Google. It works nicely, but with minimum feature compared to Firebase (which I don't mind, let it be boring as long as it's not deprecated)
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