Auth0 or How to Not Reinvent the Bicycle

Programming is all about solving problems or tasks. One could even call them puzzles.

A bunch of tasks leads to a new solution that solves a demand. But could it be that this problem was solved already by someone else?

Absolutely. This is what reusability is all about.

Code Reusability

Code reuse may be achieved in different ways, depending on the complexity of the programming language chosen. It ranges from a lower-level approach like code copy-pasting (e.g. via snippets), simple functions (procedures or subroutines), or a bunch of objects or functions organized into modules (e.g. libraries).

Today we will talk about Auth0. Auth0 is a flexible, drop-in solution to add authentication and authorization services to your applications. If you implement Auth0 into your project, users should be able to log in either with a username/password or with their social media accounts (such as Facebook or Twitter).

Sure, one could write his or her own authorization functionality, but it takes time–time to develop, time to test, and time to support it in the future. By using this framework, the team and organization can avoid the cost, time, and risk that come with building their own solution to authenticate and authorize users.

Auth0

Auth0 usage is going through API, and it has a wide spectrum of individualization possibilities – from a simple style of a pop-up login window to the customized letters one’s customer gets in case of a
password reset. In terms of security, Auth0 is also great. None of one’s private information (such as a password, for example) will fall into evil hands. Auth0 simply uses tokens to manipulate data. Also, instead of a massive document of tech documentation, Auth0 has its own client portal, where one can view possibilities for developers (comfort get-post request live examples with detailed info), or set up your project authenticatable properties.

Beyond this, the client portal provides detailed info about customers of your application – statistics about the amount of logins/logouts, the number of visits per day, the country location of visitors, and the duration of the customer’s visit.

Complexity

Programmers can easily write their own login/password service, but what if you want something more complex or interesting? Like authorization via photo using a webcam?

A programmer, in most cases, would spend a lot of time researching questions about face recognition using neural networks. After that, he would write huge amounts of code (his own neural network, logic to teach it, etc.). And here you can clearly see the advantages of using Auth0 or other libraries.

Auth0 provides not only authentication by your face, but by voice, or even finger-scan. Programmers can implement these features in just a couple of hours and with 20 or 30 lines of code. They simply send to Auth0 API photo/audio and await a response from Auth0 servers — where all calculation is made, in order not to load your servers.

Reusability is a great tool to reduce development time and save resources, and Auth0 is a great example.

To discover more about how Swan Software Solutions could create a custom application to help your business, contact us today.