Back to the Mac: Parse Adds OS X Support | Hacker News Reader

Back to the Mac: Parse Adds OS X Support

blog.parse.com

66 pointscyen22 comments

When I read the "About Parse" page I read this, I can't quite work out what Parse exactly is, why I would use it, and how I would benefit from it. Here's what I read:

"Parse is transforming the way mobile applications store, sync, and push data. Our vision is a world where mobile developers never have to develop, deploy, or maintain their own server-side stack. Our simple but powerful native mobile SDKs provide all the server-side functionality developers need for rich, internet enabled applications."

Can someone describe the exact value proposition of Parse, for me as a indie developer of Mac OS X apps?

They offer BaaS and for many apps can remove the need to setup, configure and administrate any form of backend. I'm not sure about OSX, but they've written a bunch of convenience methods for iOS and Android that are fantastic for rapidly iterating early versions of software.

According to their meta description tag, "Parse is a complete technology stack to power your mobile app's backend."

According to their SDK Introduction, "The Parse platform provides a complete backend solution for your mobile application. Our goal is to totally eliminate the need for writing server code or maintaining servers. If you're familiar with web frameworks like Ruby on Rails, we've taken many of the same principles and applied them to our platform. In particular, our SDK is ready to use out of the box with minimal configuration on your part."

Glad I'm not the only one scratching my head on just WHAT Parse actually is.

The way their website seems go out of its way to NOT tell you what it is made me wonder if it's some convoluted Flash-to-ObjC doodad (or some other, similarily 'unpopular' way of doing things). At least they have a healthy ratio of cloud icons, pricing links and testimonials on the site...? ;)

It's a JSON store and libraries to support access to it. Plus ability to set up users and push messages and maybe a couple of other things.

The sense I get is more or less that they're providing push/storage capabilities similar to what Apple provides via iCloud. The critical differences are that:

- It's cross-platform. You can use it for Android / Windows / Linux / web apps, not just iOS and OS X apps.

- It doesn't have some of the restrictions that iCloud does (e.g, App Store distribution for Mac OS X apps).

They also add some extra functionality on top of built-in OS functionality -- for instance, they've got some utilities for simplifying in-app purchases on iOS / OS X.

Skim the API docs -- that's what got me to actually understand Parse.

It's an extremely full-featured, full-stack platform. Think a less-general Heroku. The API makes it look kind of like MongoDB + blob storage + push notifications, but with really nice abstractions for things like account management.

It also has a "Cloud Code" feature that can store and execute custom JavaScript server-side on their end.

On iOS I'm using it to log errors and usage info (how often different features are used). I'm only sending/storing simple JSON which I can pull out later as required with simple scripts.

I'm not using it for anything that I couldn't write a server for but it would have been a couple of days for me to set it up securely and it comes with libraries with useful fuctions like sendEventually which will save the update to send later if it can't connect straight away (again saving me time).

Parse has more advanced features like user registration that I'm not using (I don't need them at the moment but I'm also nervous to get myself locked in too deeply). It also offers a mechanism that takes some of the work out do implementing push messages. I might investigate the push mechanisms yet.

I think it makes sense to speed up implementation where you want features not supported by iCloud such as cross platform support or to share content between users.

They need to improve their site copy. I had no idea what it is after reading the homepage. It reads like a lot of BS to be frank. What about...

"Write full-featured mobile apps using our Android and iOS SDKs, we take care of the server-side"

Also, the site design feels too sparse and low on information.

The product sounds like a great idea though.

I'm sure the reasoning is that the vagueness gets people talkin'.

I doubt it very much. It is sometimes difficult to explain something you spend all your time thinking about to a third party- because you rarely have to ask yourself "what is this in ten words or less", you're not well practised at it.

I don't believe for a second that for all the attention Parse has received, the idea of an elevator pitch has never come up.

Word of mouth on Parse is tremendous. I'm just waiting for their merger announcement with Urban Airship...

We use both, so it won't matter.

I always thought the Parse elevator pitch was something like:

- We provide an API-driven cloud database that doesn't limit you to the iCloud

- The more complicated the app, the more backend/infrastructure required. We simplify your backend.

Parse is growing and adding new features really fast, it's also dead simple to use, I love it, too bad they are not reliable, they need to improve their stability and offer better uptime.

> they need to improve their stability and offer better uptime

What's their track record here?

I use Parse for several high-usage apps, both iOS and web apps, and have never had a problem. I log every single connection error to analytics, and see very few problems.

Parse sounds awesome. I'm learning iOS development atm... I definitely need to look into this.

If you are to integrate it with a web app (like Instagram also is a webapp now), would you still use parse then? How would that work out?

You can use the JavaScript SDK[1] to build a webapp companion quite easily. This is how we implemented the mobile webapp version of our Anypic app[2].

Parse also has a REST API[3] which can be used from your web application backend of choice.

[1]: https://parse.com/docs/js_guide [2]: https://anypic.org [3]: https://parse.com/docs/rest

Nice. Sounds like the REST way would be best, doesn't it? If you are using Rails at least.

Check out https://github.com/adelevie/parse-ruby-client and https://github.com/adelevie/parse_resource.

Also, with properly-configured ACLs, you should be fine using the JS SDK client-side with a Rails backend.

Dev Guide page gives 404 https://parse.com/docs/osx_guide

Fixed - the OS X guide is actually combined with the iOS guide. Try again, from the link at https://parse.com/apps/quickstart#osx/blank !

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