Resources for Firebase Developers
Firebase is really an incredible toolset for developers. There are so many ways it can make your development experience way more efficient and enjoyable. In this article, I’ll share some resources that will let you get started, dig deeper, ask questions or stay up-to-date. First of all, to get an overview of all Firebase products, here is the home page of Firebase.
Documentation
All Firebase products have a great documentation. The main documentation page is structured to take you to the product or platform you need with one click. One of my favorites is that using the tabs in documentation, you can switch between the languages/platforms the products are available on.
YouTube channel
The official Firebase YouTube channel is super active and full of efficient, informative videos. Even the short intro videos teach you a thing or two other than the name of the product. Besides lots of tutorial videos, you can find series like #AskFirebase where the Firebase team answers user questions and #MeetFirebase where they introduce their team members.
Social media
Speaking of the team members, Firebase team has great people who are active online on social media and offline at events. Here is a list of Twitter accounts for you to follow:
Frank van Puffelen, Doug Stevenson, Jen Person, Abe Haskins, Michael Bleigh, Todd Kerpelman, Kato Richardson
Using the #AskFirebase hashtag on Twitter, you can get your questions answered on the official Firebase YouTube channel by the Firebase team.
Stack Overflow
Obviously, Stack Overflow is the place to go if you couldn’t find what you need in documentations or any other existing material. Some of the Googlers above are very active there too, answering questions, editing stuff. If you’re asking a question, make sure you’re adding the right tag: firebase, firebase-database, firebase-cloud-messaging, google-cloud-firestore, firebase-authentication, and so on. There are tags for pretty much all Firebase products.
Slack community
The Firebase Slack community is full of developers passionate about Firebase. There are people with all experience levels: beginner to Googler. Because of the massive number of people, you might see dozens of questions asked in a row with no single answer. But this also means, just by watching the stream of questions, you can get insights into how people are using Firebase and get inspired. You can easily get an invite to join the Slack community.
GDEs
Firebase also has some great Google Developer Experts (GDEs). Check the directory to find out who your local experts are. Also, contact your local Google Developer Group (GDG) if you have ideas about Firebase events. They’re excellent at bringing experts together with the passionate community.
Events
As of 2016, the team is organizing their very own Firebase Dev Summit where they announce and showcase some awesome features. You can meet dozens of Googlers from the Firebase team as well as GDEs and ask them all sorts of questions all day!
You can also see the Firebase logo in many events as they’re quite often sponsoring developer events. Definitely, join their workshops and talks if you come across. Conference sessions are never enough to learn everything about the topic but they are great to get some gotchas that you can’t just get from tutorials/online courses. Also, the team never goes to any event without some very nice swags:
Codelabs
If you’re ready to get your hands dirty with code, Google Developers Codelabs are what you need. Very nice, step by step tutorials will get you started and then, there’s no stopping you!
Another community for developers passionate about Firebase is the Firebase subreddit. It’s a quiet community with a few posts a day, so it’s easy to follow and good to get insights/share ideas.
Also, check this article by Doug Stevenson on where/how to ask questions to get answers all your Firebase questions.
These are the main resources to check out to get started and stay up-to-date or to visit when in trouble. If you think I missed any resources or people, simply reach out to me and I’ll add them to the article.
