What do you think of the Serverless Framework?

Publish Date: Jan 16 '21

11 12

This week,

Ivan Ushmorov

Web Developer, Serverless enthusiast, Dad, heavy iron fan. Russian living in Germany.

shared a link to the serverless stack website, that goes deep into building full stack web applications with serverless technologies, like Lambda, and I started reading about the Serverless Framework.

It got me thinking that it may be a pretty sweet method of building my next application.

What do you think about it? I love the idea, but I started with Laravel first, and the MVC methodology, so it is hard to get my head around.

Do you think that the future of web development is around microservices? and do you think the Serverless framework is the way to go?
Any other advice/ thoughts?

Comments 12 total

ender minyardJan 16, 2021
There is no such thing as "serverless," you're just on someone else's server. Decentralization is the future.
- Christopher WrayJan 16, 2021
  I'd love to learn more.
  
  What do you mean my Decentralization? getting off of aws onto smaller company clouds?
- Ibrahim CesarJan 21, 2021
  What do you mean "here is no such thing as "serverless"? The World Words Forum defined the word doesn't exist? As Ben Ellerby put it: "Serverless is not a good term, yet it is used to describe a powerful and often misunderstood concept." in In Defence of “Serverless” —the term.
JamesJan 16, 2021
No comment on what the future of web development might be, but I've found the Serverless Framework to be an extremely low friction way of writing and deploying code to AWS services.

Much recommended.
- Ben HalpernJan 16, 2021
  I've found it nice to work with too.
  
  I think the key is figuring out whether it is the right tool for the job (or deliberately shaping the job around the tool)... If those criteria are met, it's a joy to work with.
  - Christopher WrayJan 16, 2021
    That is great. Any examples where you would recommend serverless over traditional monolith?
- Christopher WrayJan 16, 2021
  That is cool. I love the idea, but I am really just scratching at the surface I think.
  
  How did you go about learning Serverless Framework?
  - JamesJan 16, 2021
    I wouldn't call myself an expert, but a couple things helped me get what little experience I have:
    
    The documentation, examples and templates are better than average.
    
    A lot of AWS services are either cheap as chips or anything you get up to while learning will fall comfortably into the free tier. This makes learning by doing really appealing, which is how I learn best anyway.
    
    Sorry that's not much use, but I'm also pretty close to the surface!
  - lifesaverJan 17, 2021
    Cloud computing, edx.org
Michiel HendriksJan 16, 2021
Serverless is a misnomer and a bait-and-switch.

It is a misnomer, because your serverless software depends on a serverless server to operate.

It's a bait-and-switch, because you are buying in on proprietary tech which can suddenly change their game against your benefit.

Yes, but ... I hear you say. If you write serverless software which is not tied into a specific proprietary software. How is it different from the classic pipes and filters?
Coco RonaldsJan 17, 2021
Serverless framework allows you to do many things. The problem is that it is not very opinionated on how you do it. So people do stuff in ways that do not scale or roll their own with serverless. I started in PHP and now I would say if you are interested in the JAMstack approach to modern web development, try spinning up a POC app in aws amplify. Even if you don’t use amplify at the end, just getting familiar with what they do levels up a developer’s approach to modern cloud-based software.
Ibrahim CesarJan 21, 2021
I thinks is a great doorway to develop FaaS and other managed services. Has a ton of solutions and I see as some kind of "WordPress of Serverless". Said that I think is another level of abstraction, and never a cloud has a mapping 1:1 between services and capabilities so is not like an agnostic tool (other problem I see with Terraform). I thin since 1.0 SAM is mature to provide a great developer experience for newcomers to serverless (in AWS space at least). Now I'm leaning towards CDK.

Also, if you use some sort of component it is very concerning that Serverless Framework violates the security principle of least privilege sending your AWS credentials.

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Christopher Wray @cwraytech