What does serverless really mean? Of course there are still servers—the basics of the internet aren’t changing. But what can developers accomplish when someone else handles the servers?

Serverless computing makes it easy for beginners to deploy applications and makes work more efficient for the pros. Andrea Passwater shares how convenient it can be to abstract away (or remove from view) the infrastructure components of development. But as with any convenience, going serverless has tradeoffs. Rodric Rabbah explains that going serverless can mean giving up control of your deployment and restricts your ability to respond to problems—which is why he helped create Apache OpenWhisk, an open source serverless environment framework. And Himanshu Pant considers when to use serverless services.

Serverless computing should be about developer empowerment. But we have to stay curious about the big picture—even as we simplify our toolbox.

If you want to dive deeper into the question of serverless development—or any of the subjects we’ve explored this season—check out the resources waiting for you at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. While you’re there, you can even contribute to our very own Command Line Heroes game.