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Spire.io: A New Platform For Serverless Apps That Work On Web & Mobile

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Re: Spire.io: A New Platform For Serverless Apps That Work On Web & Mobile

#31
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure what makes you say it is a thin layer over Socket.IO... or even the comparison to Firebase. I would say Firebase solves a different problem, not really a harder one. Firebase doesn't have an identity service, does it? Firebase doesn't seem to address the issue of security or privacy at all, which seems to me to be fairly important to a web application.

Also, you can implement data synchronization over a messaging layer but not the other way around. So I'd say our approach is actually more flexible. And we do plan to introduce APIs to make data synchronization easier.

Implementing the Firebase API is nontrivial. It's an entire datastore with fine-grained monitoring and optimistic, distributed, data synchronization. Messaging falls automatically out of their API -- all you do is push child messages. And it's better messaging protocol than pub/sub since you get windowed queries into the channel history for free.

Re: Spire.io: A New Platform For Serverless Apps That Work On Web & Mobile

#32
post #11

"And then, the realization: 'let’s build the picks and shovels, instead of panning for gold.'" Something about this line really irked me. Not really the kind of thing I'd want to read as a potential customer.

It's exactly the thing I would want to read. I'm the expert in gold panning, damnit, just give me the tools I need.

Re: Spire.io: A New Platform For Serverless Apps That Work On Web & Mobile

#33
post #31
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, you can implement data synchronization over a messaging layer but not the other way around. So I'd say our approach is actually more flexible. And we do plan to introduce APIs to make data synchronization easier.

Implementing the Firebase API is nontrivial. It's an entire datastore with fine-grained monitoring and optimistic, distributed, data synchronization. Messaging falls automatically out of their API -- all you do is push child messages. And it's better messaging protocol than pub/sub since you get windowed queries into the channel history for free.

You get 'windowed queries into the channel history for free' on spire.io as well.

Re: Spire.io: A New Platform For Serverless Apps That Work On Web & Mobile

#34
post #2

I love how using the term "serverless" for a backend provider immediately confuses me about the actual product. Win?

Not so much confusion as setting off by BS-alarm.

It's basically like calling a taxi a "driverless" form of transport, just because you don't do the driving.

Re: Spire.io: A New Platform For Serverless Apps That Work On Web & Mobile

#36
post #32
post #11

"And then, the realization: 'let’s build the picks and shovels, instead of panning for gold.'" Something about this line really irked me. Not really the kind of thing I'd want to read as a potential customer.

It's exactly the thing I would want to read. I'm the expert in gold panning, damnit, just give me the tools I need.

You're an expert in gold panning yet you need tools?

Re: Spire.io: A New Platform For Serverless Apps That Work On Web & Mobile

#37

You want me to hand over my entire backend infrastruture to your company and be entirely limited by your capabilites and rewrite my app specifically for your system? Seriously? Are there people actually interested this? Who's the target audience? (I hope you don't say backend developers)

These services exist for things like... game high scores, not real data that makes anyone any money.

They're for "incidental" data, rather than "valuable" data.

But I agree with you: you're setting yourself up for massive failure relying on any of these things.

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