Firebase and Digging Deeper into the Codebase
Learning the Firebase database from Google was fun and exciting for different reasons. Learning new things, especially when it comes to computer science, is always a fun journey that comes with challenges that take discipline and a little bit of thinking to overcome. The Good Vibes app we are working on at Disco Tray Studios uses the Firestore Firebase Database through Google, which allows users to create rules in order to make the database secure. Some examples of security measures include checking if a user is an authorized user, the method in which the users account was created (Facebook, Google, Email, etc.), and whether or not the collection/documents exist in the database. This is my first time working on an application that uses a remote database, so learning the ins and outs of this process is incredibly valuable to me. I am still learning how exactly the users get reads and send writes to the database in Flutter in order to be able to create better and more useful rules that are practical for our database.
I have been watching YouTube videos in order to learn about Flutter and Dart, the software and language that we are using in order to create the app. I had only learned how to use Android Studio when creating mobile applications during my Scalable Software class my sophomore year. Now that I am a senior who has not made a mobile app, much less one that works on more than one platform, in a long span of time, it is taking me a little while to learn. However, I recognize some structures from working on mobile apps and websites, so it is similar to riding a bike, except instead of a bike it is a motorcycle. I have also been looking through the code in order to understand how the app works, specifically how it interacts with the database since that is my current focus.
I will continue to work on adding rules to the database and learning the interaction between Good Vibes and the database. After updating and improving the Good Vibes web page, I will now focus on researching Firebase analytics in order to be able to analyze how users interact with the app as well as the database in order to make reads and writes as functional and efficient as possible while trying to minimize the amount of data that we use (we only have so much that is free). I will also create a beginner Flutter app in order to get a better understanding of Flutter so I can help the team and make more meaningful contributions. I also need it for my senior capstone project! Good luck to me.