Learn Serverless Application Development with Webtask
Published by Pearson
Beyond the Hype – Migrate to Serverless Deployment for Ease of Use and Ease of Cost
Serverless has been getting an incredible amount of attention (and hype) over the past year. It is a huge topic and can dramatically change how you deploy applications. This training will introduce the high level concepts, discuss various options, and then spend time with one of the simplest serverless frameworks to learn, Webtask.
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
- What serverless means, what it’s appropriate for, and where it doesn’t make sense
- Webtask basics
- Serving static files for your serverless applications.
- Local testing and debugging
This live event is for you because...
- You’ve heard about serverless but feel overwhelmed on how to start
- You want to see some practical examples of how to use serverless with your applications
- You are an application developer who needs to build back in services in a simpler form
- You are a front end developer looking to build back end services but want to simplify the setup of your APIs
Prerequisites
- Basic web development skills
- Basic JavaScript skills
- Basic understanding of APIs
Course Set-up
- httpster, a npm module that makes it easy to start a web server from the CLI
- A decent editor with web support – strongly recommend Visual Studio Code
Recommended Preparation
Recommended Follow-up
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Segment 1: Wrapping Your Head Around Serverless (35 minutes)
Defining Serverless
- What it is
- What it isn’t
- Where it makes sense
- Where it doesn’t make sense
- Options (IBM Cloud Functions, Google Cloud Functions, AF, Lambda, Webtask)
Segment 2: Using Webtask (35 minutes)
- Signing up
- Online editor, CLI
- Basic function form
- Context form
- HTTP control
- Exercise 1 – Pig Latin app
Break – 10 minutes
Segment 3: Deeper into Webtask (Context) (35 mins)
- Context object
- Query param
- Body param
- Headers
- Secrets
- Meta
- Exercise 1 – Pig Latin (HTTP Post version)
Segment 4: Storage (35 mins)
- The storage object (when it makes sense and when it doesn’t)
- The API
- Visual editor
- Exercise 1 – Score reporter (records score, total, average)
Break – 10 minutes
Segment 5: NPM Modules (20 mins)
- How to add (CLI or visual editor)
- Using request/request-promise
- Exercise 1 – Building an API wrapper
Segment 6: Middleware (35 mins)
- What it is and why you would use it
- An example for security
- Describing compilers and showing an example
- Exercise – Add security to API wrapper
Break – 10 mins
Segment 7: Testing and wrap-up (35 mins)
- Testing locally (tip on skipping the func and using Node as a script)
- Debugging locally
- Logging (visual editor)
- Resources (learning more about webtask, serverless in general)
- Final Q/A
Your Instructor
Raymond K. Camden
Raymond Camden is a senior developer advocate for Auth0 Extend. His work focuses on Extend, serverless, and the web in general. He's a published author and presents at conferences and user groups on a variety of topics. Raymond can be reached at his blog (www.raymondcamden.com), @raymondcamden on Twitter, or via email at raymondcamden@gmail.com.