Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#61

Post by kiwicopple » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 4:21 AM UTC

brunaxLorax wrote: post #20

TheRoque wrote: post #13

> However, their no-code approach generates awful code difficult to follow, making apps less reliable. Moreover, using a UI is slower than coding, especially now that AI assistants are here to help you. I don't get this one, the sentence "their no-code approach generates awful code". If it's no-code, why do you care about code ? Also, in what way are you relying on "coding" ? No information on this on the front page,…

Hi there ! Dev here, thanks for the feedback. Yes the example in the homepage ( https://manifest.build/ ) generates the DB, Admin panel and REST API, we will adapt if it is not clear. You asked an interesting question: "should you care about code quality if you use no-code tools?": As a developer, I would say definitely say yes because not understanding your own code (or your team's code) will soon or late lead to is…

(Supabase team member)

Congrats on shipping, this looks nice and well thought-out

One possible correction: the only code we generate for a user is either SQL migrations or TS types (if devs want to use the TS client). I’m not sure many would classify Supabase as NoCode, and we strongly recommend users use CI/CD development with our CLI and database migrations

https://supabase.com/docs/guides/cli/local-development#datab...

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#62

Post by oschvr » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 7:19 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #3

> If you ask 10 backend developers what you should use for your app’s backend, they will probably come up with 10 different stacks. And now they can come up with 11!

Obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/927

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#63

Post by marziply » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 8:52 AM UTC

brunaxLorax wrote: post #24

tomhallett wrote: post #4

Thoughts: 1) put the “# Short syntax for string type.” comment in your docs on your homepage example. When I first saw the “price” element I thought it was a jsonb field or something 2) why the emojis? So confused. Are those an alternative to a “dash” for entities? Do I need todo those? Do they set the favicon for that rest page? Note: it looks like it messes up indentation alignment. If it’s trying to be cute, I wou…

Hello, dev here, thanks for your feedback. Emojis caused a lot of ink to flow. I am a very visual person so I think emojis can help me when working (like icons of every app) but I noticed too that it changes the indentations, it can be disturbing. As of today they are just stripped from the title because it is just a PoC but they can be integrated in the admin panel later on. Good guess the DB is SQLite! Fastest way…

I think you should apply this feedback because I agree that the emojis are pointless and pandering. You're creating a tool for (hopefully) technically minded folk, not children.

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#64

Post by IshKebab » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 9:39 AM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #49

IshKebab wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't allow anyone to stop at a certain level of abstraction then nobody knows "what a computer actually is". I'd wager you don't know all the details of your computer's branch predictor and reorder buffer and whatnot... and if you do do you know about rebuffering and setup times and ... Don't gatekeep.

Even though I immediately see how my comment could be considered to be gatekeeping, I won't apologize for it, as I mostly mean to explain what I think was the meaning of the grandparent: that writing YAML for a living means you're a business user, not a software engineer. Just as you'd have to squint real hard to label a pro excel user as a software engineer. If everything is easy, you're not learning transferable sk…

> And I hate YAML with a passion, too, an opinion which I feel I'm entitled to.

Can't disagree with you there! Though I do struggle to find something else to recommend.

JSON5 is probably my favoured format - JSON is very clear and simple but the lack of comments is a catastrophic flaw. Unfortunately JSON5 has pretty poor adoption in the ecosystem (IDE support, libraries etc).

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#65

Post by Zenzero » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 12:02 PM UTC

typpo wrote: post #58

sigmonsays wrote: post #23

do we really need more yaml? This is insane to me.

Care to explain why you think so?

It's a horribly restrictive syntax. Instead of allowing modularity and flexibility in how I structure parts of the config, I'm instead locked into this indentation-obsessed and sparse file that forces me to learn the exact mental model of whoever designed the yaml.

Almost nobody uses explicit typing in yaml.

The fact you need features like folding strings or chomp characters is a symptom that yaml is trying to work around limitations that shouldn't be there to begin with.

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#66

Post by morbicer » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 2:47 PM UTC

https://strapi.io/ does this and much more.

It's primarily headless CMS but it produces solid db schema and sensible rest API.

Entities can be defined in json or in UI.

You get OAuth, admin panel, plugin ecosystem.

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#67

Post by morbicer » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 2:53 PM UTC

robbiejs wrote: post #50

Cool project, it speaks to me! And I dig the emojis. I like the chain able queries, like: ``` const cats = await manifest .from('cats') .where('breed = siamese') .andWhere('active = true') .andWhere('birthDate > 2020-01-01') .find() ``` What is it inspired by?

Looks exactly like https://knexjs.org/ but I bet there are query builders / ORMs with same syntax

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#68

Post by Edd1CC » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 7:26 PM UTC

How will you add rules? For example a doctor can only have 100 active patients

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#69

Post by brunaxLorax » Mon, Jun 03, 2024, 7:11 AM UTC

dhuan_ wrote: post #54

Hey very useful app, I'll be watching this. I once wanted to set up backend apps during automated CI jobs in order to facilitate e2e tests and ended up making an utility kind of similar - but yours truly goes beyond. https://dhuan.github.io/mock/ With mock you can set up backend APIs completely from configuration files or even from command-line parameters - such as $ mock serve --port 3000 --route 'say_hi/{name}' --m…

Looks really nice !

Re: Show HN: I built a backend so simple that it fits in a YAML file

#70

Post by brunaxLorax » Mon, Jun 03, 2024, 7:17 AM UTC

emrah wrote: post #60

Example healthcare-app shows only the data(base) structure. How does one define the business logic?

This is a key question for real-life use cases. YAML is a markup language so you cannot program and add logic in it.

I think about having a set of hooks that trigger the code logic hosted somewhere. Language-agnostic / serverless, that kind of stuff maybe... Any ideas ?