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Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

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101–110 of 184 posts

Re: Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

#101

I work with startups, so I make this decision every 2-3 weeks or so. Language: Python. Python is easy to learn for those that don't know it, and all-around liked. It's not hard to find engineers with existing experience if you need to grow. Framework: Django. Django does everything you might want in a framework. It scales with larger teams, and the admin is still one of its killer features. Frontend: SCSS/SASS, and v…

Looks like exactly what I would suggest, although I’d argue EC2 might be slightly overkill. You’d get more for your money with Linode/DigitalOcean/OVH or even Hetzner’s new cloud offering. Will help save some pennies early on.

Re: Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

#102
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it's a hosted service - you can publish your app with one click! Self-hosting requires an on-site Anvil installation. This is because many of the things we do to make things easy (eg returning live database rows from server to client in a function call, then manipulating them directly there) require server-side report. We think it's worth it - for example, it saves you building a new REST API each time you blow…

While Anvil sounds interesting, one thing that pops to mind before buying into such a technology is "what are the limitations?" Could I build a multi-tenant app? Can I integrate JS components, like a sophisticated datagrid? Will I be able to query the DB with SQL as I wish? Does it use AJAX behind the scenes to speed up the responses? etc.

> Could I build a multi-tenant app?

Yep! We have customers who have.

> Can I integrate JS components, like a sophisticated datagrid?

Yep! Reference docs: https://anvil.works/doc#js_interop

> Will I be able to query the DB with SQL as I wish?

Our built-in DB is shared, so you can't run SQL against it on a standard plan. Dedicated-plan customers can do that. Or just spin up another database and access it with the standard Python tools - example: https://anvil.works/blog/dashboard

> Does it use AJAX behind the scenes to speed up the responses?

The client/server RPC runs on websockets. More info: https://anvil.works/doc#runtime_details

Happy to answer more questions - check out our forums: https://anvil.works/forum

Re: Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

#103

I work with startups, so I make this decision every 2-3 weeks or so. Language: Python. Python is easy to learn for those that don't know it, and all-around liked. It's not hard to find engineers with existing experience if you need to grow. Framework: Django. Django does everything you might want in a framework. It scales with larger teams, and the admin is still one of its killer features. Frontend: SCSS/SASS, and v…

>> .. and vanilla JS with some jQuery

If I could I'd buy you a beer and cheers you for relieving my JS anxiety a bit. I love jQuery, and I'm tired of feeling ashamed of it, damnit!

Re: Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

#104
If you're using Postgres and want to get something done today, use PostgREST:

https://postgrest.com/en/v4.4/

It is the fastest, leanest, and most powerful way to interface to postgres with an API.

I've been using Python for 25 years an can tell you with certainty that Django is a slow, leaky, autocommit-infested, memory hogging pile of crap with a degenerate half-ORM that cannot model even the simplest aggregates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxL9MnWlCwo

Learn SQL and do it right.

Re: Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

#106

Honestly, I would probably build it out on WordPress with a slick theme from somewhere, and the app built out as a plugin using jQuery or Backbone on the frontend. See if works and people give me money. If I get money, refactor frontend to use react/redux. On the back, if PHP/WordPress weren't a good fit, I'd rewrite in another language and have WordPress proxy the requests and cache the responses smartly (POST/DELET…

Out of all the responses here, you'd be first to market/go-live long before the others. Like you said, see what sticks, what people want, what they'll pay, and then decide what to build and how. I have no shame in using Wordpress + mySQL + a some quick jQuery.

Re: Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

#107
post #103

I work with startups, so I make this decision every 2-3 weeks or so. Language: Python. Python is easy to learn for those that don't know it, and all-around liked. It's not hard to find engineers with existing experience if you need to grow. Framework: Django. Django does everything you might want in a framework. It scales with larger teams, and the admin is still one of its killer features. Frontend: SCSS/SASS, and v…

>> .. and vanilla JS with some jQuery If I could I'd buy you a beer and cheers you for relieving my JS anxiety a bit. I love jQuery, and I'm tired of feeling ashamed of it, damnit!

I don't think that quote justifies your love of jQuery. The keywords are "some" and "sprinkled in". In my experience jQuery always trends towards a huge mess the more it is used.

Sure, it could be used but it really shouldn't.

Interacting with the DOM in a procedural way, and storing state on the DOM is always going to be harder to manage than using a reactive pattern when you trend towards more complexity.

Re: Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

#109

Honestly, I would probably build it out on WordPress with a slick theme from somewhere, and the app built out as a plugin using jQuery or Backbone on the frontend. See if works and people give me money. If I get money, refactor frontend to use react/redux. On the back, if PHP/WordPress weren't a good fit, I'd rewrite in another language and have WordPress proxy the requests and cache the responses smartly (POST/DELET…

What is the default crud solution on WordPress? Do you create new objects? Are there API generation plugins?

I like WordPress for a CMS (wouldn't recommend anything else for a small to midsize CMS solution) but wouldn't think of it for a crud app.

That said, haven't researched it much lately, so wondering what I am missing.

Re: Ask HN: What stack would you use to build a CRUD web app in 2018?

#110
post #55

Twenty years ago, a simple CRUD app would have been written in Visual Basic or Delphi. It would have needed one programming language, and one framework. The tool support would be good: everything would talk to everything else. Heck, you'd even have an IDE with autocomplete! Today, a typical web app requires no fewer than five different languages (JS, HTML, CSS, Python/Ruby/whatever on the server, SQL). And that's bef…

You need neither JS nor CSS to build a simple CRUD app. Just use the server technology of your liking and a database. Sure, it will look ugly but so did apps 20 years ago. The landscape got complicated because now we build beautiful and elaborate things. We have apps that serve hundreds if not thousands of users simultaneously. Modern databases get hammered with requests every single second. What was the average case…

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