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

What if serverless meant no backend servers?

subzero.cloud

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 138 posts

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#101

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

ruslan_talpa wrote: post #74
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. This whole thing reminds me of that one "men will do literally anything rather than go to therapy" meme, except it's "developers will do literally anything rather than make a desktop app". And yes, I read the author's disclaimer about how this isn't just a desktop app, and no, I'm not persuaded that this is filling a need desktop apps didn't already fill.

in principle yes, i agree but one aspect the desktop apps lose, the distribution model. it's way easier to just say "go to this link" and the app is running (no install step, no central store, no "code signing").

> no "code signing"

Other than the looming threat of https requirements.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#102

Post by juunpp »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #92

I believe what the author is describing is called A Desktop Application . They were these crazy forms of web apps, that ran on a local computer, stored data locally, and didn't use a server. Or a web browser. Legend has it that they used little memory, were fast and snappy, and enabled native integration with all of an operating system's capabilities, widgets, etc, while still allowing a user to completely control wh…

Does the author realize they just re-invented an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of a native desktop application?

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#103

Post by david_allison »

npb12 wrote: post #79
david_allison wrote: post #66

Offline-first isn't enough. I've done user support with users in the mountains who don't have a reliable internet connection. Being able to say 'don't worry, the app works offline, you can (optionally) sync when you're next in the city' is extremely rewarding, and vital for software to work for these people. ---- Offline-only is not enough either. Ideally users should be able to sync between devices when offline, and…

If you haven't come across https://ditto.live , definitely check it out. They've put a lot of focus on this case.

Already running it on SQLite, but thanks

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#104

Post by _factor »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #92

I believe what the author is describing is called A Desktop Application . They were these crazy forms of web apps, that ran on a local computer, stored data locally, and didn't use a server. Or a web browser. Legend has it that they used little memory, were fast and snappy, and enabled native integration with all of an operating system's capabilities, widgets, etc, while still allowing a user to completely control wh…

It really is mind-boggling the path we’ve taken.

If only mobile phones hadn’t had been so slow when running jvm and flash when they first came out, we might be writing java and flash web apps in NodeJF by today.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#105

Post by PlatinumBench »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #92

I believe what the author is describing is called A Desktop Application . They were these crazy forms of web apps, that ran on a local computer, stored data locally, and didn't use a server. Or a web browser. Legend has it that they used little memory, were fast and snappy, and enabled native integration with all of an operating system's capabilities, widgets, etc, while still allowing a user to completely control wh…

That's all well and good but how am I supposed to track users, serve them 100 ads, waste their time/resources, and ruin their experience all at the same time?? These desktop applications sound terrible, think of the marketing loss! /s

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#106

Post by cortesoft »

juunpp wrote: post #102
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #92

I believe what the author is describing is called A Desktop Application . They were these crazy forms of web apps, that ran on a local computer, stored data locally, and didn't use a server. Or a web browser. Legend has it that they used little memory, were fast and snappy, and enabled native integration with all of an operating system's capabilities, widgets, etc, while still allowing a user to completely control wh…

Does the author realize they just re-invented an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of a native desktop application?

I mean, it is basically Electron

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#107

Post by pulse7 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #92

I believe what the author is describing is called A Desktop Application . They were these crazy forms of web apps, that ran on a local computer, stored data locally, and didn't use a server. Or a web browser. Legend has it that they used little memory, were fast and snappy, and enabled native integration with all of an operating system's capabilities, widgets, etc, while still allowing a user to completely control wh…

...and if this "desktop application" sometimes communicates with the server it should not be called a "fat client" and it's architecture should not be called "client-server", because those words aren't fancy anymore...

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#108

Post by ochiba »

jimmar wrote: 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 agree, and the other downside is that with the server-free approach described in the article, there wouldn't be a backup of your data off your device.

The author does mention privacy concerns — hence the appeal of storing the data locally on your device.

I work on PowerSync https://www.powersync.com/ — using embedded SQLite for local-first/offline-first which syncs with Postgres in the background.

I think using an architecture like that where an encrypted version of the data is synced to Postgres, and decrypted for access on the client, would balance the trade-offs well.

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#109

Post by no_wizard »

msplurgid wrote: post #53

this is very close to an inventory control app I built at work (with the exception that eventually when the client is online it will sync data to the server). I've often thought, if I had the time and capability ... take it a step further. No server sync at all. Clients form a peer-to-peer network and sync data between themselves. (perhaps bluetooth or something like Apple's Bonjour etc) Actually something like that,…

The trouble with this is discoverability and reducing friction.

It all sounds nice in theory until the device suddenly doesn’t want to talk over Bluetooth or your bonjour shares timeout. In 2024 they aren’t foolproof enough to handle constant data interchange, particularly if we are talking about a lot of devices.

Not to mention with BT it’s easy to hit radio interference unexpectedly

Re: What if serverless meant no backend servers?

#110

Post by ijhuygft776 »

dspillett wrote: post #29
ijhuygft776 wrote: post #15

What we need is updates that only include security patches.... FEATURE CHANGES SHOULD BE OPTIONAL. Because all software tend to decrease in quality overtime.

While a desirable state for users, this could quickly balloon into a nest of support issues for the maintainers due to having many different versions to patch when a security issue or other significant bug becomes apparent, increasing the project's response time to anything important like that. You could try to mitigate this by maintaining only a couple of versions (perhaps preview, current, and LTS similar to Debian…

> While a desirable state for users,

isn't users all that matters in the long term?

Post reply on HN