Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Defer (YC W23) – Zero-infrastructure background jobs for Node.js

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 114 posts

Re: Launch HN: Defer (YC W23) – Zero-infrastructure background jobs for Node.js

#61

Post by johtso »

gearnode wrote: post #46
bluelightning2k wrote: post #28

I'm kind of perplexed by this. It's very clearly infrastructure. Putting "zero infrastructure" in the title and using the same API as Lambda invoke etc. doesn't make it true. I also get double the risk of downtime, security as it's a third party running on top of AWS vs. just running on AWS. The API looks nice - but no mention of typescript at all in this post or the website, so presumably type-safety isn't the thing…

> It's very clearly infrastructure. Putting "zero infrastructure" in the title and using the same API as Lambda invoke etc. doesn't make it true. > I also get double the risk of downtime, security as it's a third party running on top of AWS vs. just running on AWS. You are right. We provide an infrastructure service. We mean by "zero infrastructure" that you don't have to implement and/or manage your own. Our service…

I do wish people had less of a tendency to be shy about Typescript in their product documentation. It's a selling point, show it off! Examples end up being a little more verbose, but they actually end up being useful for people that are writing Typescript (probably a closely overlapping group with those that care about their background jobs not disappearing).

Re: Launch HN: Defer (YC W23) – Zero-infrastructure background jobs for Node.js

#64

Post by wittydeveloper »

bastawhiz wrote: post #49

I don't understand how the example on this page works: https://docs.defer.run/features/delay/ Does the "defer" directory make the exports of those modules special? Because the defer function isn't called until the endpoint is hit, there's no way to really know (without static analysis, which is a can of worms) which functions will actually get deferred. Moreover, how does the defer function know, at runtime, which fu…

Here’s how our Builder works: When a commit is pushed, we fetch your application’s repository from GitHub and compile (if TypeScript) all the files in the first `defer/` folder found. Then, we require each of those files to retrieve the metadata exposed by the `defer()` helper, on the `default` export (is it a CRON function or not, a function name, concurrency, retries, etc).

When a background function gets a call from your application, the `defer()` wrapper intercepts this call and pushes an execution to the Defer API with the function’s name and serialized arguments.

I hope it makes thinks clearer, let me know!

[update: grammar]

Re: Launch HN: Defer (YC W23) – Zero-infrastructure background jobs for Node.js

#67

Post by wittydeveloper »

consequential wrote: post #29

What gets run on your infrastructure and what gets run locally? This is imporant as I'm not sure I'd want to trust yet another service provider with my customers' data, especially one that is VC-backed and therefore inherently less trustworthy in the long-term than others.

When deployed in non-local environments, background functions get executed on our infrastructure with their (securely stored) arguments, spawn in a dedicated isolated temporary container.

For our users concerned about data locality, we recommend pushing the minimal data as arguments (ex: ids or external ids) and fetching the data during the execution on our side, if needed, through a dedicated SSH tunneling setup. Once an execution is done, its associated isolated container - gets a dedicated VPC and disk - gets destroyed permanently. We will also provide on-premises solutions for Enterprises.

In local environment (dev), background functions run completely synchronously and locally, no call is made to Defer.

Re: Launch HN: Defer (YC W23) – Zero-infrastructure background jobs for Node.js

#68

Post by wittydeveloper »

krashidov wrote: post #59

This is awesome! Congrats on shipping. Can't wait to use this in a side project

Thank you! Join our community so we can help you onboard and get updates on the upcoming features (more is coming soon): https://discord.gg/x2v84Vqsk6

Re: Launch HN: Defer (YC W23) – Zero-infrastructure background jobs for Node.js

#70

Post by wittydeveloper »

fernandopj wrote: post #9

This is an awesome value proposition. Congratulations on launching! I have a project that I've been dreading on how I would tackle its background processing. It is a long-running process that should start and scale based on a user starting his work. I'm AWS certified and still wasn't thrilled about setting this up. Defer would solve this for me. I can see myself suggesting this solution to clients who want to run com…

Thank you for your feedback! Can't wait to onboard you on Defer
Post reply on HN