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Parse is shutting down today

status.parse.com

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Re: Parse is shutting down today

#3
I was never a huge fan of parse, having seen startups fail hard when using it, and I've been pretty vocal about that in the past [1]. It was a great idea in principal, but failed pretty hard when faced with the reality of non-toy development.

I generally hate to see projects fail, but in this case I'm not terribly upset. I think that people were getting sucked into the ease of getting apps up and running quickly, then spending 2-3x the effort getting past that initial stage versus doing it in a more traditional stack.

Perhaps the open-source server might give the community some opportunity to fix the many, many glaring bugs and problems, but I have felt like the specific design of Parse itself was just too flawed to succeed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10056033

Re: Parse is shutting down today

#4
I have seen a fair number of "abrupt" and poorly executed shutdowns on HN over the last few years, and although I don't use Parse, I feel as though the team did a good job sunsetting this over the last year. Thank you for the product, the open sourced version, and for not ditching your community! Best of luck to everyone who worked on the team

Re: Parse is shutting down today

#5
post #3

I was never a huge fan of parse, having seen startups fail hard when using it, and I've been pretty vocal about that in the past [1]. It was a great idea in principal, but failed pretty hard when faced with the reality of non-toy development. I generally hate to see projects fail, but in this case I'm not terribly upset. I think that people were getting sucked into the ease of getting apps up and running quickly, the…

I generally hate to see projects fail

Many would be happy to fail like this!

Facebook acquires Parse, an app-support company, for $85 million

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/26/business/la-fi-tn-fa...

Re: Parse is shutting down today

#6
post #5
post #3

I was never a huge fan of parse, having seen startups fail hard when using it, and I've been pretty vocal about that in the past [1]. It was a great idea in principal, but failed pretty hard when faced with the reality of non-toy development. I generally hate to see projects fail, but in this case I'm not terribly upset. I think that people were getting sucked into the ease of getting apps up and running quickly, the…

I generally hate to see projects fail Many would be happy to fail like this! Facebook acquires Parse, an app-support company, for $85 million http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/26/business/la-fi-tn-fa...

[deleted]

Re: Parse is shutting down today

#7
post #3

I was never a huge fan of parse, having seen startups fail hard when using it, and I've been pretty vocal about that in the past [1]. It was a great idea in principal, but failed pretty hard when faced with the reality of non-toy development. I generally hate to see projects fail, but in this case I'm not terribly upset. I think that people were getting sucked into the ease of getting apps up and running quickly, the…

Did you vocalize any of these issues anywhere? I have never used Parse but have been looking at the open-source version. What are the many, many glaring bugs and problems you're referring to?

Re: Parse is shutting down today

#8
post #3

I was never a huge fan of parse, having seen startups fail hard when using it, and I've been pretty vocal about that in the past [1]. It was a great idea in principal, but failed pretty hard when faced with the reality of non-toy development. I generally hate to see projects fail, but in this case I'm not terribly upset. I think that people were getting sucked into the ease of getting apps up and running quickly, the…

What's the shame in being a great prototyping tool? While it's not the right choice for everything in your stack, it's definitely one of the fastest ways to get a service or product off the ground.

My company came out of a similar place with Firebase. The initial version of our product was written 100% against Firebase. This was absolutely a good choice when it was made, but -- surprise! -- two years later, we had to start involving other databases. Was it harder than any other two-years-in scaleup? I didn't find it so. And we still use it where it makes sense.

Re: Parse is shutting down today

#9
The Parse folks seem to have handled this reasonably well but this is the perfect illustration of why building your own application around a third party service like this is not a pure win. There is a tradeoff and it can in fact bite you.

Re: Parse is shutting down today

#10
post #8
post #3

I was never a huge fan of parse, having seen startups fail hard when using it, and I've been pretty vocal about that in the past [1]. It was a great idea in principal, but failed pretty hard when faced with the reality of non-toy development. I generally hate to see projects fail, but in this case I'm not terribly upset. I think that people were getting sucked into the ease of getting apps up and running quickly, the…

What's the shame in being a great prototyping tool? While it's not the right choice for everything in your stack, it's definitely one of the fastest ways to get a service or product off the ground. My company came out of a similar place with Firebase. The initial version of our product was written 100% against Firebase. This was absolutely a good choice when it was made, but -- surprise! -- two years later, we had to…

That's the problem. It wasn't a great prototyping tool. Great prototyping tools are fine. Parse was not a great prototyping tool. In my not-terribly-nuanced-opinion, it was a really nice GUI wrapped around a not-so-great shim on top of MongoDB.

I don't have specific experience with Firebase, but I believe that from what I've heard from others using it, has a much better design that would survive much longer in the face of growth.

You say that you had to involve other databases two years in? The startups I've seen using parse are failing over to alternative technology much, much sooner.

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