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Backend-as-a-service for web apps?

davewasmer.tumblr.com

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Re: Backend-as-a-service for web apps?

#2

Post by jnbiche »

In fact, there are several such backend-as-a-service offerings in existence already, including StackMob -- a ycombinator company if I'm not mistaken. And note that any such BAAS that can be used for mobile development can just as easily be used for desktop web development. More and more desktop web apps are doing most or all of their logic locally using Javascript and then accessing their servers RESTfully for data persistence. StackMob is well-positioned to take advantage of both the surge in mobile apps and these new trends in desktop web development.

Re: Backend-as-a-service for web apps?

#3

Post by davewasmer »

jnbiche wrote: post #2

In fact, there are several such backend-as-a-service offerings in existence already, including StackMob -- a ycombinator company if I'm not mistaken. And note that any such BAAS that can be used for mobile development can just as easily be used for desktop web development. More and more desktop web apps are doing most or all of their logic locally using Javascript and then accessing their servers RESTfully for data p…

True, but don't those services require schema definitions and similar setup? It seems like a lot of prototyping could be sped up by simply inferring relationships based on RESTful URLs and relying on schema-less storage.

Re: Backend-as-a-service for web apps?

#6

Post by timfletcher »

jnbiche wrote: post #2

In fact, there are several such backend-as-a-service offerings in existence already, including StackMob -- a ycombinator company if I'm not mistaken. And note that any such BAAS that can be used for mobile development can just as easily be used for desktop web development. More and more desktop web apps are doing most or all of their logic locally using Javascript and then accessing their servers RESTfully for data p…

The problem with webapps using a BAAS intended for mobile apps is the same origin policy. I've yet to find any providers that support Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. This restriction doesn't apply to mobile apps (or Chrome extensions)

Re: Backend-as-a-service for web apps?

#7

Post by ubi »

davewasmer wrote: post #3
jnbiche wrote: post #2

In fact, there are several such backend-as-a-service offerings in existence already, including StackMob -- a ycombinator company if I'm not mistaken. And note that any such BAAS that can be used for mobile development can just as easily be used for desktop web development. More and more desktop web apps are doing most or all of their logic locally using Javascript and then accessing their servers RESTfully for data p…

True, but don't those services require schema definitions and similar setup? It seems like a lot of prototyping could be sped up by simply inferring relationships based on RESTful URLs and relying on schema-less storage.

Seems like that would only work in the simplest of cases. And then why would I pay someone for the backend of a trivial app?

Re: Backend-as-a-service for web apps?

#8

Post by davewasmer »

timfletcher wrote: post #6
jnbiche wrote: post #2

In fact, there are several such backend-as-a-service offerings in existence already, including StackMob -- a ycombinator company if I'm not mistaken. And note that any such BAAS that can be used for mobile development can just as easily be used for desktop web development. More and more desktop web apps are doing most or all of their logic locally using Javascript and then accessing their servers RESTfully for data p…

The problem with webapps using a BAAS intended for mobile apps is the same origin policy. I've yet to find any providers that support Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. This restriction doesn't apply to mobile apps (or Chrome extensions)

If it were to operate as simply a REST API, then the service could simply return everything via JSONP to avoid the CORS trap.

Re: Backend-as-a-service for web apps?

#9

Post by davewasmer »

ubi wrote: post #7
davewasmer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but don't those services require schema definitions and similar setup? It seems like a lot of prototyping could be sped up by simply inferring relationships based on RESTful URLs and relying on schema-less storage.

Seems like that would only work in the simplest of cases. And then why would I pay someone for the backend of a trivial app?

I'm not sure. It certainly couldn't handle every use case, but maybe with some convention-style configurations (e.g. a record created via a POST to /users would hash any "password" field) you could handle a bunch of typical web app scenarios.

And if that doesn't work, perhaps the schema-less prototyping is a free tier with a more robust backend service offering for the paid tier?

Re: Backend-as-a-service for web apps?

#10

Post by gvnn »

Sick of seeing projects that use twitter's bootstrap I'm building a simple api only cms: https://github.com/gvnn/flatwhite. It's a simple project that I'm using to teach myself node.js... in the future would be great if users can define their data structure and execute CRUD operations via REST calls
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