Parse.com is sunsetting service. What does that mean for courses that use it?

As you may have heard, Parse is no longer allowing new users to sign up, and existing users have about a year (until 1/28/17) to migrate data from Parse to another back-end. Here's the full announcement from Parse: Moving On

If you are currently taking one of our courses that uses Parse...

If you have already created an account, then you should be able continue the course and finish it using Parse. Despite not being a viable long-term solution, the concept about how to store data in and interact with a back-end is important to app development and will still be a useful learning exercise. You will be able to apply your knowledge to another platform that offers a similar service to Parse.

If you want to take one of our Parse courses...

We are going to shortly retire all courses that utilize Parse because you can no longer create an account and start from scratch. Most of the material covered in these courses is available as part of refreshed material anyhow, and anything that is missing will be slated for future courses or workshops.

If you have an app that uses Parse...

You will need to migrate your data to another solution before 1/28/17. Parse has provided details on how to set up your own back-end on Node.js that will provide a smooth transition for Parse users. We also recommend checking out other back-end services like Backendless or Firebase. Treehouse moderator Harry James wrote up a nice comparison of other services in another post.

Update: Here's a follow-up post from Parse on Hosting Your Own Parse on AWS and Heroku.

Alternatives

Having a quick and easy back-end as a service is still incredibly useful for developers. The services mentioned above are worth further investigation, and you may also consider setting up and hosting your own back-end and database using Node.js and MongoDB. We have some courses and workshops that can help you get this setup:

• Node.js Basics
• Deploy a Node App to Heroku
• Mongo Basics
• Adding MongoDB to Your Node App on Heroku

The Future

Going forward, we will create new courses and workshops at Treehouse that teach how to create and work with a back-end system for mobile apps. Ideally apps will be built with a data model layer that abstracts away how you communicate with the back-end, which would allow for easier switching between different systems should needs like this arise. If nothing else, it's a great teaching and learning opportunity to see how your data model layer can use an abstraction layer to communicate with a back-end. Check out this brief summary of the DAO Design Pattern for a little more detail on what that looks like.