DOUG STEVENSON: Hey, everybody.
Thanks for tuning into Meet Firebase, where
you get to meet the Googlers that make Firebase happen.
My name is Doug Stevenson, and I just
had a yelling match with Nate.
So my voice is a little bit hoarse.
Thanks for hanging with me on that.
Today in the show we have Lauren Long.
Lauren.
LAUREN LONG: Hey.
DOUG STEVENSON: Thanks for being on the show.
LAUREN LONG: Great to be here.
Thanks for having me.
DOUG STEVENSON: Tell me, what do you do on the Firebase team?
LAUREN LONG: I work on cloud functions for Firebase,
which we just launched at Google Cloud Next.
So it's our newest product.
It allows you to do custom server logic in response
to events happening in your app.
DOUG STEVENSON: A lot of developers
have been waiting for cloud function.
LAUREN LONG: Yes.
Number one requested feature.
DOUG STEVENSON: And there's a lot of excitement over it.
I know Nate is jazzed, for one.
So tell me briefly, how are developers
using that in their mobile app?
LAUREN LONG: Yeah.
So they're using it to replace things
they used to have a server for, such as customer
authentication, sending push notifications to mobile apps,
or resizing a thumbnail image after it gets uploaded.
DOUG STEVENSON: Sounds like things
that people have been doing with their own custom server--
they no longer need that.
LAUREN LONG: Exactly.
DOUG STEVENSON: And they can just
deploy their code to the Google Cloud,
and just replace all their--
LAUREN LONG: It runs when it needs to.
Shuts down when it doesn't need to run.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's great.
I want to ask you more about cloud functions later.
But first I would love to know-- where are you from?
LAUREN LONG: Yeah.
So I was born and raised in China
in a city called Shenyang in the Northeast,
in the Liaoning province.
When I was 10, my family moved to Toronto, Canada.
And I've been there until I moved here for Google
about nine months ago.
DOUG STEVENSON: Tell me-- what's unique about the place in China
where you grew up?
LAUREN LONG: It is very cold during the winters and very hot
during summers.
But we are reputed to have the best dumplings in the country.
DOUG STEVENSON: Can you get soup dumplings there?
That's what I want to know.
LAUREN LONG: No.
Soup dumplings are actually from Shanghai.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh.
LAUREN LONG: They're actually slightly
different than the dumplings I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the ones that are boiled and served
after being boiled.
DOUG STEVENSON: I like all the dumplings.
LAUREN LONG: Great.
DOUG STEVENSON: So I'll be sure to get dumplings
if I ever visit then.
LAUREN LONG: Yes.
You should.
DOUG STEVENSON: So you said you moved to Canada.
And you went to school there, too.
LAUREN LONG: Yes.
DOUG STEVENSON: What was your major?
LAUREN LONG: I studied at Queen's University
in Kingston, Ontario.
And I studied biomedical computing.
DOUG STEVENSON: Biomedical computing?
So that's kind of a rare path to take.
How did you land there?
LAUREN LONG: So I first went into university
wanting to become a doctor, because my mother was one.
And I took computer science as an elective.
And it was the course I put the least amount of work
in, got the highest mark.
And so I thought, this is great.
I should do more courses like this.
So in second year, I switched into biomedical computing,
still wanted to get into Med school.
But later on, I took the full plunge,
realized programming was actually what was for me.
DOUG STEVENSON: But your learning didn't stop there.
You got into this program called the Recurse Center.
Tell me what that's all about.
LAUREN LONG: Yes.
So I did that a few years after graduation.
It's a three month, full time programming retreat
where people that already know how to program
come to do things they've always wanted
to spend time tinkering with.
So I just dabbled in a whole bunch of things.
I actually built a project very similar to Firebase
before I discovered what Firebase was.
It's very hands on, practical, get your hands
dirty kind of learning.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's great.
I always like learning by doing projects as well.
And I think it's very effective for people
when they get into Google.
I'm curious how you decided to apply to Google.
LAUREN LONG: That's a good question.
I wanted to join Google because I wanted the opposite of what
I had done before, to get a taste of something different.
So I had my own company.
I then worked at another startup as a product manager.
So I was looking for a company that
had a lot of mentorship, support structures, a lot
of training opportunities.
And Google came out on top when I looked
at those kind of criteria.
DOUG STEVENSON: So you've been working on the cloud function
team, like you said.
What parts of that specifically have you been working on?
LAUREN LONG: Yeah.
So I work with the part closest to developers,
which I am very happy about.
I work at the command line interface, the CLI,
as well as the SDK that developers use
when writing cloud functions.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
So it sounds like, for those of you
at home who have done a Firebase deploy
command to get your code up into Google's cloud, that
is something Lauren worked on.
And so you're using her software when you do that.
So that's great.
So I'm sure the rest of the team is glad you
joined to make that possible.
And I understand that some others on the team
and you do some extracurricular activities like dancing,
is that right?
LAUREN LONG: Yeah.
DOUG STEVENSON: And I think we have
some video of that that we'd like to show everyone.
So what kind of dancing do you do?
LAUREN LONG: I've recently been doing a lot of swing dancing
with a lot of members of the Firebase team.
I also do Salsa sometimes.
I've done Chinese folk dancing when I was young.
DOUG STEVENSON: Where do you do dancing around here?
LAUREN LONG: I sometimes do it at Google.
I recently checked out the Argentine Tango class,
which was a lot of fun.
And other times I find different spots around the city.
DOUG STEVENSON: Who are you dancing with in that clip
that we just saw?
LAUREN LONG: So that clip was Andrew Lee, one
of the co-founders of Firebase.
And he currently manages the engineering team
in San Francisco.
DOUG STEVENSON: I don't dance really well at all.
But I enjoyed watching.
LAUREN LONG: I'm glad.
DOUG STEVENSON: Like other guests
who have been on the show, you also enjoy travel.
LAUREN LONG: Yes.
DOUG STEVENSON: So what have been some
of your favorite destinations?
LAUREN LONG: Yeah.
So I went to Peru a few years ago.
And I did a five day trek to Machu Picchu
called the Salkantay trek.
That was probably one of my favorites.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
What was that like?
That sounds pretty intense.
LAUREN LONG: Yeah.
So it was very intense.
First time I'd ever done anything like that.
And on the first night, it actually
started raining while I was hiking.
And I was wearing a down jacket, because it
was about freezing temperature.
And the jacket got wet.
And it was my only warm jacket.
So I had to hang it outside my tent to dry and tie it
up in hopes it wouldn't fly away.
And it did dry the next day thankfully.
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, that's good.
So speaking of adverse weather conditions,
you've also spent some time in the Arctic.
LAUREN LONG: Yeah.
I seem to gravitate towards cold places.
DOUG STEVENSON: Certainly.
LAUREN LONG: So I was there volunteering for a summer
during my university years.
And I was running literacy camps for kids and youth living
in Baker Lake, Nunavut in Canada.
And it was a community of about 2,000 people.
We were running camps that were fun that taught kids
how to read, how to write, how to keep learning on their own.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
So that was more than just travel.
You actually had a mission or a purpose in that.
So how long were you there again?
LAUREN LONG: Two and a half months.
DOUG STEVENSON: Two and a half months.
So you lived in that community and existed with them.
LAUREN LONG: I did.
Yes.
I got to go to a local wedding.
It was a lot of fun.
They had some holidays that they were celebrating.
Got to go see their little parades on the street.
And they were playing these games in the community center.
Even went hunting with a family out in the land.
We drove out for a few hours and then
didn't actually catch anything.
But it was a good experience.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah.
Sounds like quite the experience.
I've never done anything like that.
Now I want to circle back to Cloud functions.
LAUREN LONG: Sure.
DOUG STEVENSON: Right now, closed functions
only supports JavaScript for the node environment,
is that right?
LAUREN LONG: As well as TypeScript.
You can also write in TypeScript.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
And I know that the team would love to support
more languages in the future.
But today, I'd like to play a little game with you.
I would like to quiz you on your knowledge
of various programming languages.
LAUREN LONG: Oh, OK.
DOUG STEVENSON: So the way it's going to work
is I have a tablet.
And there are samples of code on here.
What I want you to do is read the function
and tell me what language it's written in.
LAUREN LONG: So here we've got public static void.
That is Java.
DOUG STEVENSON: That is definitely Java, yes.
LAUREN LONG: OK.
Great.
DOUG STEVENSON: Next one.
LAUREN LONG: So this one's short,
and def tells me that it is Python.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's right.
Python.
All right.
Next question.
LAUREN LONG: So this one, you've got the char star.
And it's either C or C++.
I'm trying to think.
I think printf is C.
DOUG STEVENSON: Yeah, C.
LAUREN LONG: All right.
DOUG STEVENSON: Good.
Next one.
LAUREN LONG: I've never seen this one before.
DOUG STEVENSON: It's a lot of parenthesis in there.
LAUREN LONG: Maybe it's a functional language?
DOUG STEVENSON: It could be considered a functional
language.
Yes.
LAUREN LONG: Is it Elixir?
DOUG STEVENSON: Not quite.
This is actually--
LAUREN LONG: Is it Hascal?
DOUG STEVENSON: No.
It's actually Common Lisp.
LAUREN LONG: Oh, interesting.
DOUG STEVENSON: So the parenthesis kind
of give that away if you know that family of languages.
OK.
Let's move on to the next one.
LAUREN LONG: All right.
You've got a def and an end and a puts.
DOUG STEVENSON: Getting in the realm of scripting languages
now.
LAUREN LONG: Is this Perl?
No.
What else is a scripting language?
DOUG STEVENSON: That's OK.
I'll just give it to you.
So this one is Ruby actually.
LAUREN LONG: Oh, I do not know Ruby.
DOUG STEVENSON: That's OK.
So let's move on to the next one.
LAUREN LONG: So here you are importing something
and then func is how you declare it.
Oh, it's Go.
DOUG STEVENSON: It is Go.
That's correct.
LAUREN LONG: I got that because of the variable name and then
the type afterwards.
def, hello, unit, equals, print line.
DOUG STEVENSON: I'll give you a hint.
It's a JVM language.
LAUREN LONG: The only JVM I know is Java.
DOUG STEVENSON: This one is Scala.
LAUREN LONG: Oh, this is Scala.
DOUG STEVENSON: They're getting kind of tricky now.
LAUREN LONG: Gotcha.
DOUG STEVENSON: OK.
Let's move on to the next one.
LAUREN LONG: OK.
This is some really low level stuff.
DOUG STEVENSON: Oh, no.
This is also a scripting language.
LAUREN LONG: Oh.
I have no idea.
DOUG STEVENSON: This one is actually Perl this time.
LAUREN LONG: This is Perl.
DOUG STEVENSON: The dollar signs in front of the variable names
give that one away.
LAUREN LONG: Gotcha.
DOUG STEVENSON: And the last one--
and I don't think either of us have
written a line in this one.
This one is kind of tricky.
LAUREN LONG: So why would you capitalize everything?
DOUG STEVENSON: Well, that's the convention of some languages.
LAUREN LONG: Oh, is this Visual Studio?
DOUG STEVENSON: This is Visual Basic.
Yes.
LAUREN LONG: Visual Basic.
Sorry, yes.
That would be the ID.
DOUG STEVENSON: We don't do so much of that here at Google.
But good job on the game.
And thanks for being on the show, Lauren.
LAUREN LONG: Thanks, Doug.
It's been fun.
DOUG STEVENSON: And thank you for tuning in to Meet Firebase.
If you want to subscribe to more video content,
you can do that right here in the Firebase channel on YouTube
by clicking the Subscribe button.
And you should go check out Cloud Functions for Firebase,
where Lauren has made a big impact.
And I'll see you next time on Meet Firebase.
[APPLAUSE]