This blog was originally written here 👈🏼
in a previous episode I mentioned...
In reality by using a combination of 11ty serverless and Netlify functions we offload almost everything to the mythical server farm in the sky...
...and the comment I received the most ...once was what is this farm, what makes it so mythical, where are the baby goats?!?
Like Ms. Frizzle and the gang we are going on a field trip to answer all of those questions.
Conjunction
...no
junction
...you better not
what even is a serverless function?
...straight to jail
To all those still here ...big respect a serverless function ...in the most basic terms takes work off of the end users browser and ships that data cattle to a server farm that handles all of the heavy lifting and returns the result.
but you said serverLESS yet it goes to a server? I need answers!
Serverless is the ...marketing approved way to say
"Server that you don't maintain, have to setup, update, scale, cry over, but get to use like you did."
If this is not a sufficient answer take it up with
${majorServerlessVendorMarketingDepartment.email}
...Let me get through my spiel and I will give out a reward.
💡 A SALT MINES amount of 🧂: I am ...attempting to cram a novel into a pamphlet. This is all from my narrow perspective, use it as a reference to do your own exploring through the topic. ...It's all fun and games until someone takes me seriously.
Who has the goods?
Short answer... a ton of companies that provide any combination of options you could ever want.
My answer... Netlify, I gravitated towards how easy it was to wire everything up and get running. ...for more flattery please unlock the season pass.
The real question is...
What is it good for?
After much boiling... we are left with a few main points that make serverless functions so spicy.
- Scalability, ...did your spicy marketing tweet go viral and now your website is in the direct gaze of the twitter hivemind?? being able to scale in real time all of the provisioning and zZzZzzZZzzZ... is handled for you by the vendor. You as the user get to focus on what is really important. ...idk selling rare Squishmellows.
- 0 server config/maintenance, ...uh-oh your bespoke server is throwing an 856 THPS code can you fix it?! no because I made that up and wonderful people ...with titles on their LinkedIn pages have solved the real problems associated with running a server so we don't have to.
- The $$$, being able to ramp up and down with precision lowers the cost for the user. I don't have a funny story here ...all my work on Netlify is free.99 so as a consolation prize this video by the Fireship Youtube channel sums up what serverless functions help us avoid.
- Speed,...unlike Jack Traven who only wanted to keep it above 50, serverless functions live much closer to the end user which makes delivery times consistently faster and more reliable at scale when compared to their bespoke breatheran. ...if only my pizza delivery could figure this one out. Shipping less and less JS to the end user helps bring really clean well functioning experiences to more people who before were limited by their hardware or data connection. ...rare Squishmellows for ALL!!
💡 A few things to think about: There are some drawbacks when it comes to serverless functions ...instead of spoiling all the fun I just wanted to mention them for further study by the class later.
🔒 Serverless functions introduce a new set of security questions.
❄️ "cold-start" or when a server needs to boot up when it is used potentially causing lag ...like your car in the winter
🐞 Debugging becomes ...interesting
...if you made it THIS far 🎉 Congratulations 🎉 as promised baby goats..
Thanks for reading 👋🏼 do your own research and check me out on Twitter!
TLDR
Serverless functions provide a ton of useful features for both the developers and the end users by shipping the giant JS data cattle to a server farm near you..
My data cattle on the server farm:
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