Parse Launches Cloud Code to Run Custom Code for Your App

[adelevie]

This looks incredible. I've been wanting a clean way to select multiple random objects from my Parse db. Until now, this was the best answer: https://parse.com/questions/random-search-its-possibile.

Also, it seems possible to combine this with IronWorker. You could create a worker in Ruby, then in the Parse Cloud Code, call that worker's endpoint. Something like this (rough sketch):

worker.rb:

  require "some_ruby_email_gem"
  cgi_parsed = CGI::parse(payload)
  email = payload["email"]
  SomeRubyEmailGem.send(email, "Welcome, #{email}!")

upload.rb:

  require 'iron_worker_ng'
  client = IronWorkerNG::Client.new(:token => config['iw']['token'], :project_id => config['iw']['project_id'])
  code = IronWorkerNG::Code::Ruby.new
  code.merge_worker 'worker.rb'
  code.merge_gem "some_ruby_email_gem"
  client.codes.create(code)

  url = "https://worker-aws-us-east-1.iron.io/2/projects/#{config['iw']['project_id']}/tasks/webhook?code_name=#{code.name}&oauth=#{config['iw']['token']}"

  puts "Add this url to to your Parse Cloud Code:"
  puts url

Parse Cloud Code:

  Parse.Cloud.define("welcome, function(request, response) {
    var user = request.object.get("user");
    var url = "https://worker-aws-us-east-1.iron.io/2..." // the url from upload.rb
    http.open("POST", url+"?email="+user.email, true);
  });

EDIT: HTTP requests to 3rd parties within Cloud Code are not possible yet, but Parse will add the feature soon. (http://twitter.com/ParseIt/status/245584646686003200)

[scottfr]

This looks great and should solve a number of issues with the current API.

I have an app that basically tracks donations for different campaigns. Getting total donations per campaign isn't easy with the current API. There is nothing like a "select sum()" statement in Parse. Basically I currently have to run a cron job on my machine that will periodically download all donations by campaign and update the total donations field on the campaign (the regular user account doesn't have privileges to edit the campaign object).

This seems like it will be a much cleaner, saner way to take care of this type of task.

[pbreit]

It seems like Parse will be in a never-ending battle to continue adding functionality on the back-end to approach what one gets when they simply run their own back-end. Surely there is a happier medium?

[lacker]

Our goal is to help you build great mobile apps faster. We want Parse to be not just easier than running your own backend, but also more powerful. If that involves a lot of hard work on our part, so be it.

[qhoxie]

I think Cloud Code is a good example of why this is not the case. The more flexibility and customization they allow in the platform, the fewer long tail features they need to implement because people will be able to do it themselves.

[msie]

Finally! I can run server code! I just might take another look at them now!

Edit: Huh? Why was this downvoted? The problem I've had with Parse for a long time was that I still needed a separate server to do some backend processing that was not feasible to do on a client. Now I may no longer have need for that server.

[frankdenbow]

My thoughts exactly! This makes it much more appealing to me now. If they add in some helpers for Core Data I would be even more excited to try it.

[facorreia]

It seems to make sense. Looks similar to the way Windows Azure Mobile Services lets you run JavaScript code on the server.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2012/08/28/announcing...

[julianpye]

This is great! And perfect timing! Just today I was starting to write a set of external hosted scripts to generate XML from my Parse objects, but this makes everything much easier. Parse is just terrific!

[aherlambang]

This definitely lifts off the cons I've had so far with Parse, adding logic to the backend instead of just a pure data storage. Awesome job to the Parse team

[jawngee]

This is great news.

I've been using parse on a project and was missing this functionality.

As a side note, I'm loving parse, but their iOS SDK is poorly designed. Like really badly designed. I had a few email exchanges with one of their devs, but it didn't really seem to go anywhere. You can't create subclasses of any of their objects because they like using static methods versus singleton instances. It's really stupid and it really ties you to using parse. You also have shit like this everywhere:

    NSString *someval=[pfobject objectForKey:@"shit"];

Where this would be preferred:

    NSString *someval=mySubclass.shit;

So you can create a wrapper/shim for PFObject, but that doesn't float across queries returning arrays of objects.

And, yes, I considered writing my own wrapper around their REST API but I don't have that kind of time.

[lacker]

Helping subclassing to work more smoothly is definitely on our minds. A lot of people do subclass PFObject right now, and as you point out that means you need to handle queries in a slightly different way. It could be nicer, though, and we intend to make it nicer.

[nbclark]

This is great, but not quite what I had hope for. Yes you can run custom code, but only what their current API allows. It just saves time by not having to transfer data to the client to aggregate.

Step in the right direction though.

[thedangler]

Yeah! I requested this when I first started using parse a long time ago. I'm so happy that I can now implement hooks for syncing other db's.

[amirhirsch]

how is this priced?

a cloud code request probably can't fit within the pricing model posted on the parse site as a single API request because it may presumably have huge variance in resource consumption. like what's to stop someone from use parse's resources to run bitcoin miners?

[TazeTSchnitzel]

It looks to me like these are going to be short-running, on-request computations, that might timeout. Not long-running back-end code.

Edit: Confirmed! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4506783

[alexchamberlain]

How do they secure this?

[lacker]

The environment is based on V8, which provides a lot of tools to sandbox javascript code. There's some other pretty cool technology there - we might write a more detailed blog post about it if folks are interested.

[jordibunster]

I assume there're execution limits to avoid while(true) {}. Can't seem to find information on that though.

[lacker]

Yes, each request is limited to a few seconds. We should make that more clear in the documentation - thanks for the feedback.

[lucian1900]

I wish them luck securing that. Even app engine had security trouble at first :)

[majorapps]

What now is an API call that counts towards your quota? An API call to the Cloud Code from the client, or each call to a Parse method within the Cloud SDK?

[lacker]

Each of these counts as an API call. It's a good question - we should make this more clear in our documentation.

[deepGem]

This is good news. I had to move away from Parse just because I had to do some computation at the backend. Will try out the new feature.

[millerm]

Is there any mechanism for specifying the HTTP method or is every function mapped to POST? I'm not complaining, I'm just curious.

[densone]

Does parse talk about how they run their backend? I feel like it's a lot of mongodb...

[sargun]

They use MongoDB, and MySQL. This worries me immensely. The Mongo part more than MySQL, only because historically, MongoDB has not had a great story around HA, and reliability...