Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#91

Post by cyberferret » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 10:40 PM UTC

subpixel wrote: post #48

This was a long time coming, so congrats first. I also recently read this from an experienced Firebase developer: https://medium.freecodecamp.com/firebase-the-great-the-meh-a... Interestingly, he lists several things that he things Firebase needs in order to be awesome, and server-functions is last on the list: > 1. Real querying capabilities. Search, joins, the whole enchilada. > 2. Some sort of references likes Mon…

The extremely poor JOIN functionality is what turned me away from Firebase a couple of years ago.

I come from 25+ years of SQL, and Firebase was my choice for essentially my first 'real world' NoSQL project. I was enjoying it right up to the bit where I had to extract data from 2, and 3 data tables at the same time in a single query. Couldn't believe how verbose and painful it was and it made me drop NoSQL for a while before more recently going back to it (with RethinkDB).

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#92

Post by randylubin » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 10:58 PM UTC

Very cool - congrats on the launch!

Is there any ability to set reoccurring functions or anything like a cron job?

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#93

Post by RoboTeddy » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 11:05 PM UTC

inlined wrote: post #83

akanet wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell from the docs - are server functions able to to modify or reject writes to refs in the realtime DB before they happen?

No. All events are asynchronous. This use case is best simulated by having clients post to a queue. Cloud functions then either discards or applies writes in that queue.

You should add this technique to the docs! It makes you realize that the Cloud Functions feature is a lot more powerful than you might initially think.

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#94

Post by bikamonki » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 11:06 PM UTC

Finally! This was the feature that made me go with parse.com when I started making backend-less apps. For Firebase apps I have to spin-up tiny node.js bots to capture events and do some cloud code magic.

Will start testing now!

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#95

Post by mparis » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 11:07 PM UTC

subpixel wrote: post #58

drumttocs8 wrote: post #8

Oh man. This is great. Firebase is now a one-stop shop for the majority of app infrastructure needs, and really is the closest thing to a "serverless" infrastructure. Vendor lock-in aside, I can't think of a reason not to use it, at the MVP level at least.

Firebase offers a lot, but it's no longer the only game in town that offers a sorta-serverless baas. Here are some compelling alternatives (I'd love to see a complete list of the best Firebase alternatives): - https://www.syncano.io - https://www.graph.cool - https://www.backand.com I'm omitting things like feathers.js b/c the most attractive feature of Firebase-like tools is not having to manage your own server/data…

And https://scaphold.io!

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#96

Post by mparis » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 11:07 PM UTC

subpixel wrote: post #58

drumttocs8 wrote: post #8

Oh man. This is great. Firebase is now a one-stop shop for the majority of app infrastructure needs, and really is the closest thing to a "serverless" infrastructure. Vendor lock-in aside, I can't think of a reason not to use it, at the MVP level at least.

Firebase offers a lot, but it's no longer the only game in town that offers a sorta-serverless baas. Here are some compelling alternatives (I'd love to see a complete list of the best Firebase alternatives): - https://www.syncano.io - https://www.graph.cool - https://www.backand.com I'm omitting things like feathers.js b/c the most attractive feature of Firebase-like tools is not having to manage your own server/data…

And https://scaphold.io!

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#97

Post by jwngr » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 11:12 PM UTC

randylubin wrote: post #92

Very cool - congrats on the launch! Is there any ability to set reoccurring functions or anything like a cron job?

Not a built-in way per-se, but you do have a handful of options. You can use a third party scheduling service like https://cron-job.org/. You could also use something like https://cloud.google.com/solutions/reliable-task-scheduling-... which uses Google App Engine and Cloud Pub/Sub. We actually have a sample that shows just this (HTTPS function using an external cron job service): https://github.com/firebase/functions-samples/tree/master/de...

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#98

Post by digitalmaster » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 11:12 PM UTC

Andrex wrote: post #69

Thanks to the mods for un-duping this and linking to the blog post, which went live like 7 minutes after I hit submit, haha. Anyways, this was the last piece of the Firebase puzzle for me. Between this, Authentication, Analytics, the DB (obviously) and Storage, Firebase has been indispensable in getting my side project app up and running -- and most importantly, feeling "real." My only request at this point would be…

+1 For React native support! In fact emailed tech support about just yesterday. Got a really quick response in which they essentially said -- "....We're exploring potential solutions, but I can't share any details or timelines at this time."

I'm optimistic. :)

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#99

Post by randylubin » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 11:14 PM UTC

jwngr wrote: post #97

randylubin wrote: post #92

Very cool - congrats on the launch! Is there any ability to set reoccurring functions or anything like a cron job?

Not a built-in way per-se, but you do have a handful of options. You can use a third party scheduling service like https://cron-job.org/ . You could also use something like https://cloud.google.com/solutions/reliable-task-scheduling-... which uses Google App Engine and Cloud Pub/Sub. We actually have a sample that shows just this (HTTPS function using an external cron job service): https://github.com/firebase/functio…

cool - thanks for the tip!

Re: Introducing Cloud Functions for Firebase

#100

Post by Andrex » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 11:17 PM UTC

digitalmaster wrote: post #98

Andrex wrote: post #69

Thanks to the mods for un-duping this and linking to the blog post, which went live like 7 minutes after I hit submit, haha. Anyways, this was the last piece of the Firebase puzzle for me. Between this, Authentication, Analytics, the DB (obviously) and Storage, Firebase has been indispensable in getting my side project app up and running -- and most importantly, feeling "real." My only request at this point would be…

+1 For React native support! In fact emailed tech support about just yesterday. Got a really quick response in which they essentially said -- "....We're exploring potential solutions, but I can't share any details or timelines at this time." I'm optimistic. :)

That's awesome! I might do the same thing in a bit. It's neat we can use the Web SDK with RN (in a limited capacity), but an official (or even semi-official) library would be the best.