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What if serverless meant no backend servers?

subzero.cloud

31–40 of 138 posts

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#31
I'm lucky enough to have had tons of time to build something with these values.

A huge blocker I didn't grok at the beginning is API keys. Unless the app interacts with 0 services, at all, you need edge functions that essentially just add an API key header to a request from the client.

It offends me because I don't want people to have to trust me, but...there isn't anyone who will recommend otherwise. :/

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#32

> By now, everyone knows that serverless doesn't actually mean without servers; it just means using someone else's servers. What? Is this some kind of confusing reference to lambda and competing providers? As far as I know most of computing is serverless.

In my experience when someone says the specific word "serverless" they mean "lambda and competing providers" 100% of the time.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#33
post #26

I'm always glad to see people experimenting with different approaches to building and deploying apps. That said, the general idea of this Serverfree approach doesn't appeal to me. On any given day, I'll use 4 different devices. I need my data to synchronize seamlessly. I wouldn't use a program (in-browser or traditionally installed application) unless I can synchronize that data either by storing files in a Dropbox-l…

I often think we should have a separation of concern between storing/syncing data and application code. That syncing app files should be an OS level feature, with many different available data stores, and sync well across different platforms.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#34
post #26

I'm always glad to see people experimenting with different approaches to building and deploying apps. That said, the general idea of this Serverfree approach doesn't appeal to me. On any given day, I'll use 4 different devices. I need my data to synchronize seamlessly. I wouldn't use a program (in-browser or traditionally installed application) unless I can synchronize that data either by storing files in a Dropbox-l…

I often think we should have a separation of concern between storing/syncing data and application code. That syncing app files should be an OS level feature, with many different available data stores, and sync well across different platforms.

Conflict resolution logic is typically application specific so it would be hard to get something like this working in practice.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#35
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often think we should have a separation of concern between storing/syncing data and application code. That syncing app files should be an OS level feature, with many different available data stores, and sync well across different platforms.

Conflict resolution logic is typically application specific so it would be hard to get something like this working in practice.

Do not allow offline mode and make fsync block until server acknowledges write.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#36
post #26

I'm always glad to see people experimenting with different approaches to building and deploying apps. That said, the general idea of this Serverfree approach doesn't appeal to me. On any given day, I'll use 4 different devices. I need my data to synchronize seamlessly. I wouldn't use a program (in-browser or traditionally installed application) unless I can synchronize that data either by storing files in a Dropbox-l…

Exactly, initially we try to ditch data storage, lets say we do it by encrypting db and syncing to a cloud service, then expect it syncs on other devices when we're about to use the app. This would be just CRUD. Background processes would be a whole different problem to tackle with. I still can't envision a self-hosted decentralized backend on trivial devices.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#38
post #26

I'm always glad to see people experimenting with different approaches to building and deploying apps. That said, the general idea of this Serverfree approach doesn't appeal to me. On any given day, I'll use 4 different devices. I need my data to synchronize seamlessly. I wouldn't use a program (in-browser or traditionally installed application) unless I can synchronize that data either by storing files in a Dropbox-l…

I often think we should have a separation of concern between storing/syncing data and application code. That syncing app files should be an OS level feature, with many different available data stores, and sync well across different platforms.

It should be OS-level, but in 2024 NO vendor (Apple, Microsoft, Google) is going to make a new open protocol for cross-platform syncing, w/o binding it tightly to their authentication platform/device security system/etc.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#40
post #26

I'm always glad to see people experimenting with different approaches to building and deploying apps. That said, the general idea of this Serverfree approach doesn't appeal to me. On any given day, I'll use 4 different devices. I need my data to synchronize seamlessly. I wouldn't use a program (in-browser or traditionally installed application) unless I can synchronize that data either by storing files in a Dropbox-l…

This can be done through a shared database file that syncs however you want- e.g. stored in a shared cloud, etc. The app itself then needs to have very robust conflict resolution code, but it can be done. I think some of the more security focused open source password manager apps already use an approach like this.
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