

The Future of Parse - ninthfrank07
http://blog.parse.com/2013/04/25/the-future-of-parse/

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veidr
Parse was an interesting, exciting service; now it's not.

And, I have a hunch that all that stuff on their blog about how _nothing's
gonna change_ is even more bullshit than it usually is when a cool startup
gets acquired by a walmart. Because since it's Facebook buying them, Parse
isn't going to get most of the future customers they might have gotten.

Most developers probably understand at a visceral level that using Facebook as
the opaque backend provider for your customers' private information would be
like using Oracle as your open-source community relations manager, or using
McDonald's as your nutritional consultant.

~~~
eric_bullington
Agreed. I'm now really glad I didn't choose to use Parse for an upcoming
project -- I seriously considered it.

I do think there is now a particularly acute need for an open source project
that implements Parse's REST API. Maybe a Python project using Flask? If I had
the time...

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BenSS
I'll say congratulations to the individuals who helped build Parse and show
everyone good developer docs.

As a user of Parse, I'm done. I have zero confidence that the service will
continue as is for very long, despite the best intentions of the original
team. Biggest concerns are requiring FB auth, FB's flippant attitude towards
privacy, and the engineering culture mismatch.

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dopamean
Ilya Sukhar specifically cited the culture compatibility as one of the reasons
they chose Facebook. I'm curious about why you think that there is a culture
mismatch.

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BenSS
Facebook is perfectly willing to release "features" of unknown quality to the
user population. The developer documentation&communication is still awful
(instead of outright misleading as it was a couple years ago).

This seems completely counter to the way Parse has operated so far. Perhaps on
a personal level it's a great fit, but in operation? Doesn't seem like it.

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dweekly
(FB tool here) How can we make our documentation & communication not awful?

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BenSS
I will admit this may have changed in the past 8? months, but the last couple
experiences I had on different platforms was headache-inducing. Search (on FB
docs) would turn up examples for X that just did not work. It didn't seem like
the reference examples were tested when the API was updated. Blackhole/flag
any examples that fail. The only thing worse than no docs is misleading docs.
Another annoying event was app settings would vanish when submitting.

Edit: Okay, I went over to the developer site and it looks like things have
improved more from the docs side. Progress! Can you say with certainty all the
new examples work?

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dweekly
I'd hate to make a guarantee I couldn't stand by. Let me say this: they're all
supposed to work - if you find some that are b0rk3d, please let me know and
we'll fix/remove them.

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firefoxman1
Looking at all these comments has me wondering: _Why is it that as soon as a
startup is acquired we immediately abandon it as if it's going offline
tomorrow_? I first remember noticing this when FriendFeed was acquired. As
soon as I read the news, I quit using it. I checked back about a week later
and sure enough, the only ones using it were blogs like TechCrunch.

Any ideas why we (that includes me) behave this way?

~~~
junto
Parse becomes one of the many strings to Facebook's bow. Parse by itself was a
single very good offering. Facebook can now "sunset" Parse whenever they feel
like it. My feeling is that Facebook bought Parse for the talent and the
mobile knowledge, and not the product itself. I see the Parse engineers being
moved out to help Facebook's real mobile strategy move forward. I may be
proved wrong, but I'd be scared to invest my entire business on a backend I
don't control. I'd be shit-scared to invest my entire business on a backend
controlled by Facebook.

Facebook have shown time and time again that they do not care about the
privacy of their users. They are not going to get that trust back any time
soon. In my opinion the assumption that they could "get away with it" was a
long term bad mistake on Zuckerberg's part.

As an aside, I don't post on Facebook anymore once I realised that my deleted
data was not really deleted. Even today, almost a year and a half after
deleting all my posts, check-ins and photos, my profile still shows 3 "hidden"
check-ins. Until a few months ago, a "deleted" (a.k.a hidden) album was still
showing in the album count. Facebook has a few bugs when they do their entity
counts, which show up their logical rather than physical deletes. Sorry, but
when I delete something, I expect it to be deleted, not just marked as
deleted.

I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, and I really can't throw a 8000
lb gorilla very far.

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infinitone
What are alternatives to Parse?

This acquisition just created a better opportunity for a new player. I for one
cannot trust Facebook's handling of their data- let alone my apps data.

~~~
jchrisa
If you want to control your own data, we are building a synchronizing database
for mobile <https://github.com/couchbase/mobile>

This isn't a full backend as a service, but for data storage we are hoping to
hit a good 80% point where folks can use Couchbase Lite and pretty much just
rely on their mobile app chops / not have to worry about the backend.

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anuraj
Just means that now I have to look elsewhere or roll my own cloud data store
and push proxy. It is a small inconvenience, but not something insurmountable.

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jpadilla_
Congrats to the great team at Parse!

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orangethirty
Why?

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antoinec
Because they made an awesome product and deserve this maybe.

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orangethirty
Im curious as to why an acquire is celebrated. My feeble mind sees this as a
success if the original product was the business nd not the offering.

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goldfeld
I've never seen it put more bluntly and truthfully than "the original product
was the business." I always find it creepy to see all these founders and
investors and Y-Combinator folks patting themselves on their backs for a hefty
exit. It's like saying "well done gentlemen, we fooled them all the way
through." Since I have been aware of this, I have decided I don't want
investors meddling around in my decisions, or if I even want a business at
all. Open source projects seem like a more honest and longterm way to champion
a product that I truly care about (which is not the case with most of these
"startup guys".) Having a successful business seems to always devolve into
just making more and more profit, and those interests permeate back into every
decision. Which is why people are so worried about Parse's future with
Facebook, and what's also happening to Google in ever increasing levels now
with G+. I look up to Mozilla these days, hope they don't fall off the deep
end with Mozilla Corp's Firefox OS.

~~~
orangethirty
You may also develop a commercial product and still care about it. Profit does
not mean a product is doomed to be milked. Its the attitude of the business
towards that product. In case of Parse, I always thought they would strongly
grow into an independent companny. Maybe bought by someone else, though not
Facebook.

Another point is that developing businesses as products is aslo neccesary.
This allows bigger companies with cash flow but without the talent to simply
shop around for their next offering.

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gogatsby
Parse is a great service. I can only assume the team is as awesome as their
product. Fingers crossed some of the Parse approach to product and developer
service rubs off on facebook. Well I guess buying the company they want some
of the developer love Parse has.

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modarts
>Fingers crossed some of the Parse approach to product and developer service
rubs off on facebook

That'd be like boiling the ocean.

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gogatsby
Hah hah, good one.

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parshap
I guess Facebook wants Open Graph (and their other APIs) to eventually be the
primary backend for apps. Makes sense.

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romain_dardour
I don't believe it's gonna roll that way with developers. They want full
control and access to their data and Facebook is not the kind.

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collypops
Facebook are stepping into new (for them) territory here. Unless this is an
acqui-hire, it may be an "X isn't shutting down" statement I can believe.

~~~
robryan
Not really, I don't think Instagram is being shut down any time soon. Unless
you are talking about then running a subscription service as new ground?

