Introducing Full-Stack Firebase
In the Summer of 2017 I was approached by some great folks from Udemy.com. They were interested in publishing a Firebase course to their platform and thought that I might be interested in collaborating on a course with Juarez Filho.
Juarez and I have been in the Google Developer Expert program for a few years and we both specialize in Firebase for web. We use the Firebase platform every day and know the space pretty well.
So I said “yes”, understanding that I was in for a lot of work.
I use time-tracking software every day, so I can confidently say that I’ve spent over 450 hours on this project over the last year.
I had no idea what I was getting into.
The problem is that I couldn’t stomach the thought of knocking the course out quickly. I’ve been unhappy with my video production skills for a while now, and I wanted to solve that.
So I bought a bunch of video equipment and software and started teaching myself. I worked on the project for three hours every morning before work and on Saturday except for vacations and breaks for a bit of freelance work.
Anyway, the reason we’re here is because I’ve got over 40 videos and I’m anxious to ship them!
We’re talking about a full-blown, two-and-a-half hours video course on Udemy.com.
I’m a web developer, so this is Firebase for web, not Android or iOS.
That’s not to say that the fundamentals won’t apply if you’re a native developer but I built the demo project in React and used the JavaScript SDK for everything.
You can start learning with the free companion site, FullStackFirebase.com.
I’ve used FullStackFirebase.com as a place to outline the material because you’ve got to write it all down before you can start shooting videos.
So start at FullStackFirebase.com and you’ll find links to purchase the course on Udemy.
You’ll find a bunch of introductory modules about high-level Firebase concepts. We’ve alsocovered serverless concepts and how to think about the Firebase ecosystem. And of course you’ll find modules on each of the big Firebase platform features.
These modules include
- the Firebase command-line interface
- Authentication
- Firestore
- the Realtime Database
- Cloud Functions for Firebase
- Firebase Storage
- Firebase Cloud Messaging,
- and Firebase Hosting.
Each module starts with an introduction and a walk-through to demonstrate the feature in action.
Next we implement the feature in our demo app.
The original plan was for Juarez to write a demo app in Angular and I’d do one in React. Juarez is behind schedule, so the Angular demos aren’t ready; however, my React demo app is live at react.fullstackfirebase.com, and you’ll be able to deploy your own version of it when you take the Udemy course.
Don’t get hung up on the fact that it’s in React, because you won’t need to code any React. The Firebase SDK is all vanilla JavaScript, so my integrations are vanilla JS as well. I would have done the entire app in vanilla JavaScript, but that would have added a few hundred more hours to the development process.
So let’s wrap this up.
I am not giving up on How To Firebase.
I’ve just been wholly consumed by learning video production and making a Firebase course.
FullStackFirebase.com is still a work in progress, but it’s free for everyone.
The Udemy course isn’t free, but it isn’t expensive either.
I’m confident that you won’t find a more comprehensive course on Firebase for web. And now that I’ve spent a few hundred hours learning to produce videos and screencasts, I’m anxious to dive back into YouTube and How To Firebase.
Thanks for reading and watching my material!
And as always, make sure to follow for the latest Firebase tips and tricks!
