Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Fastest/easiest framework to build a web application in 2020?

news.ycombinator.com

71–80 of 93 posts

Re: Ask HN: Fastest/easiest framework to build a web application in 2020?

#73
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share a bit more about how it's showing its age? (I'm not a web dev, but played around with Flask recently and in general find the giant ecosystem of different frameworks fascinating.)

> Can you share a bit more about how it's showing its age? 1. There are some bugs that can't be fixed just because they break backwards compatibility. E.g. usernames are stored to the database incorrectly by default, but the dev team isn't going to change it. So if you don't know that it works the way that it does, it can cause issues. 2. Most people now use a js frontend and a REST backend. Django can do this well,…

Do most people actually use a js front-end and a rest backend?

It's still brittle, it's still user hostile and it's still slow. Seems like a massive waste of time and a vanity project to me.

I'm still mainly doing server-side templates coupled with complicated js widgets when I really need them.

Re: Ask HN: Fastest/easiest framework to build a web application in 2020?

#75
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in a very similar situation to you, I'm a full stack developer (slightly stronger at frontend) that used to do a lot of Ruby on Rails work, but I've been looking for a statically typed backend framework to specialise in. Hopefully some of my research / bike shedding / procrastination will be helpful to you :) I've been trying different backends to find the 'perfect' stack that's statically typed (spoiler: no sta…

Hey, thanks for the detailed reply! Last night, I went through a lot of research and bikeshedding myself, and a lot of my intuitions aligned with your experiences. I was curious about Go, but it seemed while it was possible to do mostly everything you wanted to do, it wasn't necessarily a smooth experience. I looked at Kotlin next. I'd used Spring Boot before with Java, and at the time I was fond of the annotations,…

You can't go wrong with either one (Kotlin, C#) tbh. The Microsoft Docs and Jetbrains docs are pretty decent.

Re: Ask HN: Fastest/easiest framework to build a web application in 2020?

#77
post #6

If you know something now, use it. If you don't, Rails or Laravel are both good options. I'm partial to Ruby, its syntax, its expressiveness; the ecosystem cannot be beat, and the tooling is stable and mature. There's nothing not to like.

Yes the ecosystem can be beat. Have you seen the PHP ecosystem lately? And Laravel’s? Especially Laravel actually. The documentation is amazing. There is Laracast. A lot of tools to help. Dedicated CI services (ChipperCI). So many great components.

Re: Ask HN: Fastest/easiest framework to build a web application in 2020?

#78

Rails is less "easy" than it used to be due to the integration of Webpack (via the Webpacker gem) and thus the entire world of frontend JS development…yet that move in many ways "saved" Rails as a serious tool for modern web professionals. So while I'm not sure Rails is easiest to pick up for a complete newbie, I am sure that there is still no framework that can touch Rails when it comes to fast/easy to build an enti…

I'm a bit tired of all this react and javascript mubojumbo and keen to learn more about rails. what would be the best tutorial that isn't outdated? so much things are just old...

https://www.railstutorial.org/book I found this really useful.

Re: Ask HN: Fastest/easiest framework to build a web application in 2020?

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you share a bit more about how it's showing its age? 1. There are some bugs that can't be fixed just because they break backwards compatibility. E.g. usernames are stored to the database incorrectly by default, but the dev team isn't going to change it. So if you don't know that it works the way that it does, it can cause issues. 2. Most people now use a js frontend and a REST backend. Django can do this well,…

Do most people actually use a js front-end and a rest backend? It's still brittle, it's still user hostile and it's still slow. Seems like a massive waste of time and a vanity project to me. I'm still mainly doing server-side templates coupled with complicated js widgets when I really need them.

A js front end itself (versus templates) is probably a wash for most use cases, but the benefits of having a REST back end that imposes a clear separation between the front end and the back end is enormous. IMHO the benefits are big enough to make it worth re-writing the front end over again every 5 years until the front end folks eventually get their act together. Just try to make sure you're doing as little logic as possible in the front end, because as I said every line of code you write is going to need to be rewritten, whereas with Django any code you write today will still be good 10 years from now with only minor maintenance needed.
Post reply on HN