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Hi HN, I'm the lead developer on Firebase Hosting and the post’s author. We're trying to build something that's both simple to use and a serious production grad

Hi HN, I'm the lead developer on Firebase Hosting and the post’s author. We're trying to build something that's both simple to use and a serious production grade product. We think we're pretty close to the mark but we'd love to hear how we can improve it. Let us know in the comments (or email me at chris@firebase.com).

jakozaur 12y ago
Congratulations on launch! It would be nice if you could add some latency benchmark against common alternatives like S3. A lot of ppl use that for static webpages, but I wonder how lack of CDN affect the user experience.
- mikelehen 12y ago
  Great suggestion! The difference between being on a CDN and not is really night and day. Every serious site deserves to be on a CDN. Your users will thank you for the faster page loads. :-)
- nirvdrum 12y ago
  I guess comparing to CloudFront would be helpful, too. If you've gone so far as hosting on S3, serving through CloudFront is about 5 minutes of additional effort.
taylorbuley 12y ago
Can you provide any background on Firebase's thinking for where this, strategy-wise, fits into the platform? For example, is this supposed to be more of an add-on service for folks who already use Firebase or intended to woo new developers?
- mikeryan 12y ago
  Firebase gives you the ability to create dynamic pages with no backend requirement. This left a really small gap that the developer still had to host that HTML/JS page somewhere. So Firebase already supplied the backend now they also supply the hosting.
- mikelehen 12y ago
  In short, both. :-) This was a commonly-voiced pain point for our existing customers and fits very well with our vision to make Firebase the best platform for building modern apps. But when we do something, we like to do it "right" and so we also think Firebase Hosting comes with a very compelling feature set (Simple Deploy/Rollback, Automatically-provisioned SSL, and a global CDN). So we're optimistic it'll also attract new developers to the Firebase platform.
cnp 12y ago
While this isn't specific to hosting, one glaring thing that I've noticed in the documentation / tutorials is there are no clear instructions on how to retrieve data. In the Getting Started link at the top of your site, theres a section that says 'Save Data', but nothing for 'Retrieve Data'. And the documentation isn't any clearer.
- jacobawenger 12y ago
  Take a look at the "Reading Data From Firebase" doc (https://www.firebase.com/docs/reading-data.html https://www.firebase.com/docs/reading-data.html). If you've got some feedback on it or think it isn't clear enough, I'd be happy to chat with you and see how we can improve the docs.
  - cnp 12y ago
    Thanks for the response. I have, and its simple enough from the perspective of a developer that has been in the field for a little while, but since these services are getting more and more popular it seems like striving for absolute clarity might pay off in the long run. For example, 1. Its not totally clear that the url that you are supposed to use is the url that is generated when you create a new app and land inside of Forge. 2. Its also not totally clear that in retrieving data you're supposed to follow the structure of you JSON schema. A simple note along the lines of "If you would like the retrieve the third index in your array, its as simple as creating a new Firebase instance and passing in 'mydata.firebaseio.com/3' as the url. 3. Like I mentioned in my first comment, it would be good if you had a 'Retrieve Data' bullet point on your getting started page. For users who simply want to import JSON into Forge to display in their app via retrieval, a two line note and example along the lines of Retrieve Data user = new Firebase('mydata.firebaseio.com/users/3') user.once (userData) -> console.log userData.val() # Should return Kim Gordon would help. There are little things (and I emphasize little here) scattered throughout which would lead less experienced devs into a bit of confusion when first getting started. If I'm being overly cautious here please disregard, but it did hang me up when I first started playing around with the system. Either way, totally love the hosting and super psyched to dive deeper into the platform!

jakozaur 12y ago

Congratulations on launch! It would be nice if you could add some latency benchmark against common alternatives like S3. A lot of ppl use that for static webpages, but I wonder how lack of CDN affect the user experience.

mikelehen 12y ago
Great suggestion! The difference between being on a CDN and not is really night and day. Every serious site deserves to be on a CDN. Your users will thank you for the faster page loads. :-)
nirvdrum 12y ago
I guess comparing to CloudFront would be helpful, too. If you've gone so far as hosting on S3, serving through CloudFront is about 5 minutes of additional effort.

taylorbuley 12y ago

Can you provide any background on Firebase's thinking for where this, strategy-wise, fits into the platform? For example, is this supposed to be more of an add-on service for folks who already use Firebase or intended to woo new developers?

mikeryan 12y ago
Firebase gives you the ability to create dynamic pages with no backend requirement. This left a really small gap that the developer still had to host that HTML/JS page somewhere. So Firebase already supplied the backend now they also supply the hosting.
mikelehen 12y ago
In short, both. :-) This was a commonly-voiced pain point for our existing customers and fits very well with our vision to make Firebase the best platform for building modern apps. But when we do something, we like to do it "right" and so we also think Firebase Hosting comes with a very compelling feature set (Simple Deploy/Rollback, Automatically-provisioned SSL, and a global CDN). So we're optimistic it'll also attract new developers to the Firebase platform.

cnp 12y ago

While this isn't specific to hosting, one glaring thing that I've noticed in the documentation / tutorials is there are no clear instructions on how to retrieve data. In the Getting Started link at the top of your site, theres a section that says 'Save Data', but nothing for 'Retrieve Data'. And the documentation isn't any clearer.

jacobawenger 12y ago
Take a look at the "Reading Data From Firebase" doc (https://www.firebase.com/docs/reading-data.html https://www.firebase.com/docs/reading-data.html). If you've got some feedback on it or think it isn't clear enough, I'd be happy to chat with you and see how we can improve the docs.
- cnp 12y ago
  Thanks for the response. I have, and its simple enough from the perspective of a developer that has been in the field for a little while, but since these services are getting more and more popular it seems like striving for absolute clarity might pay off in the long run. For example, 1. Its not totally clear that the url that you are supposed to use is the url that is generated when you create a new app and land inside of Forge. 2. Its also not totally clear that in retrieving data you're supposed to follow the structure of you JSON schema. A simple note along the lines of "If you would like the retrieve the third index in your array, its as simple as creating a new Firebase instance and passing in 'mydata.firebaseio.com/3' as the url. 3. Like I mentioned in my first comment, it would be good if you had a 'Retrieve Data' bullet point on your getting started page. For users who simply want to import JSON into Forge to display in their app via retrieval, a two line note and example along the lines of Retrieve Data user = new Firebase('mydata.firebaseio.com/users/3') user.once (userData) -> console.log userData.val() # Should return Kim Gordon would help. There are little things (and I emphasize little here) scattered throughout which would lead less experienced devs into a bit of confusion when first getting started. If I'm being overly cautious here please disregard, but it did hang me up when I first started playing around with the system. Either way, totally love the hosting and super psyched to dive deeper into the platform!