Ask HN: How can I develop the frontend for my startup?

#1

Post by vitorfhc » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

Hello HN,

I work as an SRE, and I spend most of my time studying and developing the backend. I am really good at what I do, but do you know something I am horrible at? The frontend.

In the last few days, I've finally decided to start my first startup. The problem is that I'm a noob when it comes to frontend, even though I've had professional experience with React and Vue a few years ago. I don't think I even know how to HTML and CSS correctly.

How do you develop simple and complex frontends? I think React and Vue are great, but sometimes I need something quite simple. Also, speed matters because I don't want to waste six months only coding frontend.

Re: Ask HN: How can I develop the frontend for my startup?

#2

Post by mathgladiator » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

I'm an infrastructure guy at heart, and I find the modern stacks distasteful. So, I'm building my own which is backend-centric and I'm bootstrapping the HTML and CSS with tailwind.

You can bootstrap a decent UI quickly with https://tailwindui.com/ , but then you need to start to learn how to manage designers to produce resource. I'm currently exploring Upwork as a way to make things nicer.

For me, the new framework I'm building depends on my streaming platform, so all I need for the UI is HTML templates (and with tailwind, I really only need HTML). I'm calling it RxHTML: https://book.adama-platform.com/rxhtml/ref.html

Re: Ask HN: How can I develop the frontend for my startup?

#3

Post by PaulHoule » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

Bring in somebody with the skills.

Re: Ask HN: How can I develop the frontend for my startup?

#4

Post by girishso » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

You didn’t mention your backend stack, but whatever it is, it must be able to generate html on server. Just use that along with turbo js, you’ll be just fine. Doing front end in vue/react/whatever.js is just a fad these days.

Re: Ask HN: How can I develop the frontend for my startup?

#5

Post by leros » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 2:13 PM UTC

Can you modify a front end in an existing code base (as opposed to starting from scratch)?

If so I'd suggest buying a starter template. The advantage is that you already have an opinionated design app to look at for examples on how to do things properly. I personally use CoreUI for a few side projects. There are tons of them out there.

There are also full app starters out there with backends that implement auth, payments, etc.