Cloud Functions; Women in Tech and more with Jen Person Video Lecture | Coffee with a Googler - IT & Software

welcomes coffee with a Googler today I'm
chatting with Jen person who has been
the face of cloud functions for firebase
for some time developers install the
google cloud storage module name is its
path in storage along the event and then
return
Jen's here today to talk about this and
I'm also a couple of nice big
announcement that she has for us welcome
Jane thanks happy to be here Lawrence so
you've been working cloud functions for
firebase can you tell us all about it
sure so I have made some content around
cloud functions for firebase its runs
serverless in the backend and so that
enables you to run code that you
wouldn't necessarily want your client to
have access to right and prior to
working on cloud functions for firebase
I hadn't worked with that kind of
trigger before and I really loved that
it was so easy to learn so at first I
was like I thought you know a lot of
this is stuff that I could do myself
already you know an iOS developer I
could do a lot of this from the client
but then I realized that it was
definitely worth while to learn cloud
functions for firebase even though I
wasn't that familiar with javascript
before now okay and I mean one of the
magic things that firebase when we first
launched it was like all this stuff that
you can do in the clients without having
all of these tiers and managing these
tiers like for simple things like data
reads and writes but we've learned over
time that of course people still need to
have code running on the backend yes
that's true we still need some things
running on the back end but firebase is
still taking a lot of that work out of
it for us so it scales up and down the
service for you so you don't have to
worry about managing that yourself and
you don't have to worry about managing
specific servers right right you know
FTP to this one to deploy code and FTP
to that one to deploy code like in the
bad old days you just push it into a
firebase and it does the rest
it just works and now functions works
off a concept called triggers can you
tell us a little bit about that sure so
a lot of times you're going to run a run
some code in response to something that
happened probably client-side or it
could be something like a write to the
database or adding something to storage
authenticating a new user may be some
sort of important analytics event or
maybe HTTP your pubs
something that normally happens in your
app and you want to run some snippet of
code every time the code is triggered
based on that event and that was a
perception change that I had to make and
it was like I didn't get functions at
first and I watched some of your videos
and then suddenly it just dawned on me
that cuz to me like you know back-end
code would always be I have to make a
call and would execute something and I
might have a cron job that does it
occasionally or it's just something to
respond to users but now it's like a
field and the database changes and the
code will execute or you know an author
vent happens and code will execute that
thing right it's really cool yeah and
there are a lot of great samples of this
on our github function samples and it's
great to check it out and try it for
yourself because if you're not sure what
it can do there are a lot of options out
there I'm try out yet so there's there's
a code lab as well for the friendly
chats and there's some there's some
functions have been added to that have
you seen them yeah actually and it also
uses machine learning as well so you can
really see how cloud functions works
with all sorts of other code that you'd
want to use in your apps right there's
one really neat function in there that
like because friendly chats for a
chatroom and then sometimes people
upload bad pictures to chat rooms and so
what it does is it uses a cloud function
to call our cloud services to see if
this content is objectionable and then
if it is it like blurs the image it's
really there's one of my favorites
whenever I demo I'd like to show that
one I show them the blurred image and
I'm good to guess what it is
you'll have to watch some of the videos
to see for years now
so cloud functions you've been doing a
fabulous job on this and you weren't
even a full-time Googler when you were
doing it guilty I hope this isn't seen
that too much it was an empty compliment
but I was really surprised when I found
out that you become a Googler because I
thought you were one all alone thank you
which is great yeah I had been a vendor
so working for third party at Google for
a little over a year and actually this
is my second day working as a Googler
always the joke when somebody's on their
second day of jobs like you came back so
how's it been how's that the second full
day of work being it feels great you
know it's such a welcoming community
anyway I always felt like I belonged as
well so in a lot of ways that feels like
business as usual but it's nice to
have the title it's good the imagine
community because you're gonna be doing
some community work in the coming months
right some conferences you're speaking
up yes I'm going to a couple of
conferences soon I'm going to Google
developer days Europe which is going to
be in Krakow Poland nice I'm gonna be
doing a talk on app growth and app
quality okay and yeah I'd love people to
check it out showing some cool firebase
features it's got a great story and I'm
specially interested in seeing other
female developers come out what I'd love
to communicate with them and see what
they're working on sure I mean it's been
a tough time for women recently in
Silicon Valley so it's great to have
women up front speaking and women
talking about cutting-edge stuff the way
that you have so you know if you're
watching this video and you're a woman
in tech you know please please come
along to our conferences you're very
very welcome and would just be delighted
to have you there and when we have folks
like Jennifer up front speaking yeah
hopefully it's a it's she's been an
inspiration to many of us here and
hopefully she will be to you too so as
well as the Poland one you're also going
to be speaking at the firebase summit I
am speaking at the firebase so much can
you give us a hint on what it will be
it's definitely a favorite talk people
really enjoy it no spoilers and that's
where this is at Game of Thrones
okay so this is going to be at the end
of October right yes cool so you're
gonna be there the whole firebase team's
gonna be there you know we're gonna do a
bunch of talks I'm not allowed to talk
about my talk either yet but we'll be
there answering questions on stage and
the whole thing's gonna be on video as
well so which is great so thanks very
much Jennifer for coming thanks for
being on this show it's me
I know it's day two and you're supposed
to be doing your orientation but we
dragged you out to put you in the studio
so appreciate that so thank you so much
for watching this episode of coffee with
a Googler and if you have any questions
for me or if you have any questions for
Jennifer just please leave them in the
comments below we would love to see you
at our events particularly the two that
are coming up but you're always welcome
at any google event thank you so much
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