4 ms·

What is the difference between this and let's say 'Meteor'?

jamest 15y ago
Good question. Meteor is an application framework, like Ruby on Rails. Firebase is a database, like MySQL. We both think that application development is going to radically change in the future and we're both building products that promote a new way of developing apps. We're stoked about Meteor and see our products as very complementary.
- tlrobinson 15y ago
  Could Firebase be used as a database for Meteor? (i.e. replacing Mongo)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - tzm 15y ago
    yes. There is a node.js library for Firebase that uses websockets as a transport layer.
  - jamest 15y ago
    Absolutely
- geoffschmidt 15y ago
  Good answer :) One minor quibble.. I like to think of Meteor as an "application platform" rather than a framework, because we're trying to take on some problems that web frameworks don't always tackle, like packaging and deployment. Also, we don't require you to use a particular strategy for generating HTML. For example, it makes sense to use backbone.js with Meteor, if that's your thing. At the end of the day, Meteor is about how you make all of the pieces fit together in a distributed cloud application. (For better or worse, that's what websites have morphed into, when you think about all of the APIs and services they use.)
geoffschmidt 15y ago
Meteor dev here. If you're writing a Meteor application, you need a realtime database. Otherwise, Meteor can't make the page update in realtime, because it can't find out about database changes in realtime. Firebase is a realtime database that you could use with Meteor. The database we use in the Meteor video is MongoDB with Meteor's 'mongo-livedata' package, which adds some realtime glue to Mongo. But there are many potential advantages to using a database that is designed from the ground up to be realtime, and we're very excited that the smart guys at Firebase are taking this on. We predicted that this would happen eventually, but we had no idea it would be so soon. (If you don't like the word realtime, please s/realtime/reactive/)
- aphexairlines 15y ago
  Would you say that Meteor is a functional reactive programming platform like Flapjax or FrTime, but over the wire? Distributed FRP?
  - geoffschmidt 15y ago
    Yes, except that we have tried to massively simplify FRP to make it more accessible and more familiar-feeling, and to break the system into pieces so it's not one monolithic blob. I used to work at Asana, where I worked with Luna, which is Asana's inhouse framework and is a distributed FRP system very much like a future-alien-technology version of Flapjax.

Good question. Meteor is an application framework, like Ruby on Rails. Firebase is a database, like MySQL. We both think that application development is going to radically change in the future and we're both building products that promote a new way of developing apps. We're stoked about Meteor and see our products as very complementary.

tlrobinson 15y ago
Could Firebase be used as a database for Meteor? (i.e. replacing Mongo)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- tzm 15y ago
  yes. There is a node.js library for Firebase that uses websockets as a transport layer.
- jamest 15y ago
  Absolutely
geoffschmidt 15y ago
Good answer :) One minor quibble.. I like to think of Meteor as an "application platform" rather than a framework, because we're trying to take on some problems that web frameworks don't always tackle, like packaging and deployment. Also, we don't require you to use a particular strategy for generating HTML. For example, it makes sense to use backbone.js with Meteor, if that's your thing. At the end of the day, Meteor is about how you make all of the pieces fit together in a distributed cloud application. (For better or worse, that's what websites have morphed into, when you think about all of the APIs and services they use.)

geoffschmidt 15y ago

Meteor dev here. If you're writing a Meteor application, you need a realtime database. Otherwise, Meteor can't make the page update in realtime, because it can't find out about database changes in realtime. Firebase is a realtime database that you could use with Meteor. The database we use in the Meteor video is MongoDB with Meteor's 'mongo-livedata' package, which adds some realtime glue to Mongo. But there are many potential advantages to using a database that is designed from the ground up to be realtime, and we're very excited that the smart guys at Firebase are taking this on. We predicted that this would happen eventually, but we had no idea it would be so soon. (If you don't like the word realtime, please s/realtime/reactive/)

aphexairlines 15y ago
Would you say that Meteor is a functional reactive programming platform like Flapjax or FrTime, but over the wire? Distributed FRP?
- geoffschmidt 15y ago
  Yes, except that we have tried to massively simplify FRP to make it more accessible and more familiar-feeling, and to break the system into pieces so it's not one monolithic blob. I used to work at Asana, where I worked with Luna, which is Asana's inhouse framework and is a distributed FRP system very much like a future-alien-technology version of Flapjax.