Firebase


What is this technology good for?

Firebase is Google’s JSON Database Management System.  It’s pretty sweet.  This database has done a great job of data control with regards to authentication by using the database itself to store authentication rules.  Otherwise, everything is open and accessible to very obvious and well-defined endpoints.

Since it’s Google, it works very nicely with other Google technologies, of which there are many.  For example the Google Pub/Sub API can trigger events to occur when specific data changes on a per user basis. Great for push notifications.

As well, AngularJS can basically handle real-time up to date interfaces changes for any data stored in Firebase.


Who can make use of this technology?

App developers, web developers, game designers.

 


Where can I see examples of this technology?

Gmail would likely store everything in Firebase.  The features where email comes in and you see that right away, hangouts chats and stuff like that are all possible because of Firebase.


Why should somebody use this technology over alternatives?

Firebase really has an unmatched ability in terms of real-time updates.  The best anybody else can do is be just as good.

 


What I like about this technology

JSON is a very clean and easy to read data structure to read when output nicely.  When you have nice data structures and supporting tools, you can find data anomalies quicker leading to less debugging and more rapid development.

The ability to bind data change to interface elements through AngularJS makes it the best database for real-time interfaces.