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Could this be even better than parse.com since you can program the server? That's what I never quite understood about Parse. It seemed like you had to do pretty

by pbreit 11y ago

Could this be even better than parse.com since you can program the server? That's what I never quite understood about Parse. It seemed like you had to do pretty much everything in the client/app which seemed like a severe limitation.

fweespeech 11y ago
The cost of operations on a small dev shop of 1-2 people shouldn't be underestimated. Pushing the need to be up 24/7/365 onto an external service with the manpower/funding to succeed at it reasonably well is generally worth it.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > Pushing the need to be up 24/7/365 onto an external service with the manpower/funding to succeed at it reasonably well is generally worth it. Devops here. The only service I have ever found to have anywhere close to 5 9's of reliability? S3. That's about it though.
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    Fair enough but do you think a 1-2 man shop can get better reliability than a product like Parse if they are average app developers that don't have Ops experience? EDIT Since I'm rate limited: > I don't think any product exists that's going to remove the need for ops experience. I haven't used Parse, so I can't comment on its reliability. If you are an app developer whose backend consists entirely of talking to an API, I'm uncertain exactly what "ops experience" on the server side you believe is needed?
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      I don't think any product exists that's going to remove the need for ops experience. I haven't used Parse, so I can't comment on its reliability.
    - seanwilson 11y ago
      > Fair enough but do you think a 1-2 man shop can get better reliability than a product like Parse if they are average app developers that don't have Ops experience? I don't think that's ever going to be possible unless both people forgo sleep and are willing to drop whatever it is they're doing to attend incidents. I'm really surprised by the number of responses of the form "but I could run that cheaply myself on my own server!" I see to online services.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > I'm really surprised by the number of responses of the form "but I could run that cheaply myself on my own server!" I see to online services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect
      - fweespeech 11y ago
        Yeah. That was really where the host service has value. Admittedly, if you know what you are doing, you can build a reliable, distributed backend but that isn't a skillset most App developers have.
        seanwilson 11y ago
        It's not just about knowing what you're doing though, it's about having a team that can support the service 24/7.
        fweespeech 11y ago
        Fwiw, I have a distributed service that runs 24/7/365 for years without downtime. I've had ~4 on call events in 5 years and all of those I could wait at least 9 hours to resolve. Certain situations allow you to do that sort of thing.
amelius 11y ago
That's the genius behind parse (from the perspective of their creators): they don't have to run your code, so they don't even have to think about all the issues that come with that (security, CPU usage, etcetera). Firebase used the same trick.
- csmajorfive 11y ago
  That's just not true. Most reasonably mature apps were running code on our servers via Cloud Code. And it's hardly genius or a trick to have thick client SDKs.
- campers 11y ago
  They do have think about some of those issues more, especially security if the client contains all the of application logic, hence the row level access control. And when you charge per API call CPU usage matters, a database update is significantly more expensive than a cached get. It's genius to get started quickly, but quickly becomes an architectural nightmare. If you need to change a query and the logic is in the mobile app then its going to be days before Apple approves a new build, and even longer before the user updates to the latest version. If your logic is on the server side then you roll out the new code and you're done.
RealCasually 11y ago
Parse offered Cloud Code though, which runs your own Javascript functions and could do so as background jobs.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
csmajorfive 11y ago
We had a product called Cloud Code that was similar to Node (albeit way more limited) so you could run stuff on the server.
oconnor663 11y ago
I think the idea is that if you're willing to program the server, you just use MongoDB or SQL or whatever. Parse is all about having the option not to deal with those things.

by pbreit 11y ago

fweespeech 11y ago

The cost of operations on a small dev shop of 1-2 people shouldn't be underestimated. Pushing the need to be up 24/7/365 onto an external service with the manpower/funding to succeed at it reasonably well is generally worth it.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> Pushing the need to be up 24/7/365 onto an external service with the manpower/funding to succeed at it reasonably well is generally worth it. Devops here. The only service I have ever found to have anywhere close to 5 9's of reliability? S3. That's about it though.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Fair enough but do you think a 1-2 man shop can get better reliability than a product like Parse if they are average app developers that don't have Ops experience? EDIT Since I'm rate limited: > I don't think any product exists that's going to remove the need for ops experience. I haven't used Parse, so I can't comment on its reliability. If you are an app developer whose backend consists entirely of talking to an API, I'm uncertain exactly what "ops experience" on the server side you believe is needed?
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I don't think any product exists that's going to remove the need for ops experience. I haven't used Parse, so I can't comment on its reliability.
  - seanwilson 11y ago
    > Fair enough but do you think a 1-2 man shop can get better reliability than a product like Parse if they are average app developers that don't have Ops experience? I don't think that's ever going to be possible unless both people forgo sleep and are willing to drop whatever it is they're doing to attend incidents. I'm really surprised by the number of responses of the form "but I could run that cheaply myself on my own server!" I see to online services.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > I'm really surprised by the number of responses of the form "but I could run that cheaply myself on my own server!" I see to online services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect
    - fweespeech 11y ago
      Yeah. That was really where the host service has value. Admittedly, if you know what you are doing, you can build a reliable, distributed backend but that isn't a skillset most App developers have.
      - seanwilson 11y ago
        It's not just about knowing what you're doing though, it's about having a team that can support the service 24/7.
        fweespeech 11y ago
        Fwiw, I have a distributed service that runs 24/7/365 for years without downtime. I've had ~4 on call events in 5 years and all of those I could wait at least 9 hours to resolve. Certain situations allow you to do that sort of thing.

amelius 11y ago

That's the genius behind parse (from the perspective of their creators): they don't have to run your code, so they don't even have to think about all the issues that come with that (security, CPU usage, etcetera). Firebase used the same trick.

csmajorfive 11y ago
That's just not true. Most reasonably mature apps were running code on our servers via Cloud Code. And it's hardly genius or a trick to have thick client SDKs.
campers 11y ago
They do have think about some of those issues more, especially security if the client contains all the of application logic, hence the row level access control. And when you charge per API call CPU usage matters, a database update is significantly more expensive than a cached get. It's genius to get started quickly, but quickly becomes an architectural nightmare. If you need to change a query and the logic is in the mobile app then its going to be days before Apple approves a new build, and even longer before the user updates to the latest version. If your logic is on the server side then you roll out the new code and you're done.

RealCasually 11y ago

Parse offered Cloud Code though, which runs your own Javascript functions and could do so as background jobs.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

csmajorfive 11y ago

We had a product called Cloud Code that was similar to Node (albeit way more limited) so you could run stuff on the server.

oconnor663 11y ago

I think the idea is that if you're willing to program the server, you just use MongoDB or SQL or whatever. Parse is all about having the option not to deal with those things.