FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python • Hacker News Board

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#21

Post by jph00 » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 1:32 AM UTC

jeanlucas wrote: post #13

Hey, just looking this quickly, the ideal case are for python developers that don't use Flask or Django? I'm a web developer for just 10 years, and I like seeing HTMX being applied, but I don't see why I should consider adopt it. Maybe I'm not the ideal user, but would like to know from you who do you think this is for.

Flask or Django users should be able to get started pretty quickly with FastHTML, and users of the preview that have switched over tell us that they're finding it easier and faster to create what they want in FastHTML.

Having said that, the people that will get the most out of it and folks that haven't got much prior web dev experience -- e.g. people who have just done some streamlit/gradio/etc apps, or maybe Python programmers that haven't written web apps at all. I mention this briefly on https://about.fastht.ml in the section "A new generation of coders":

> "Coding is the key to turning the ideas in your head into products and services that can help people. AI has recently made it easier to get started with coding, which means there are more people than ever before who can create useful stuff. But this new generation of coders do not generally have the same background as full-time software engineers. They may have been trained in a different field, or they may have learned to code on their own. We hope that FastHTML will make it easier for this new generation of coders to turn their ideas into reality. To create maintainable and scalable solutions."

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#22

Post by ptero » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 1:38 AM UTC

Thank you! I'm another engineer who uses python (and C, Matlab and a few others) and whenever I want a web app I end up with some Rube Goldberg style contraption. Looking forward to trying your software.

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#23

Post by Yenrabbit » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 1:39 AM UTC

I've been using this while it was in development and it's a pleasure to work with. Highlights for me:

- Incremental complexity - starts super simple and I can add stuff as I need it. I don't like frameworks where step 1 already leaves you with lots of files and a bunch of things you need to know.

- Easy escape hatches. I like some of the simpler demo/dashboard things but inevitably hit a ceiling that suddenly requires a lot of hacking to get past. Since FastHTML is a lot more transparent it's very easy to go right in and do something with JS or mess with the request or make something custom. So you're not stuck with only the widgets a framework gives you or anything like that.

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#24

Post by harel » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 1:42 AM UTC

First, I welcome any project that enriches a software ecosystem, and this project no doubt does just that. However, I have two points which will deter me from using this (or any python->html/js framework) in a commercial production project:

1. It silos front end development in Python world. It might be great if your entire team are and always will be Python devs, but what happens when you want dedicated from end developers? What happens when you need to deviate out of what the framework gives you in a front-end context? What happens when you need to eject from "python" into a dedicated front end environment? All your front end code is now written in Python. Worst, you now might even have JavaScript code embedded inside Python code. I keep hearing "CoffeeScript" in the back of my mind...

2. Any python project using FastAPI (which is fantastic), flask, etc. and is growing in scope, will ultimately build Django. For example, FastAPI (which is great), has SqlModel (which is awesome) which makes SqlAlchemy less sucky and more like Django. Start to factor in all the other batteries we got used to getting with Django, and it starts adding up. If the project is smallish in scope and well defined to know it will stay such, sure it's a valid and excellent choice. The same applies here - unless batteries are included, or this is (as suggested in a comment) available as a Django app, you'll end up building Django.

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#25

Post by globalnode » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 1:53 AM UTC

jph00 wrote: post #21

jeanlucas wrote: post #13

Hey, just looking this quickly, the ideal case are for python developers that don't use Flask or Django? I'm a web developer for just 10 years, and I like seeing HTMX being applied, but I don't see why I should consider adopt it. Maybe I'm not the ideal user, but would like to know from you who do you think this is for.

Flask or Django users should be able to get started pretty quickly with FastHTML, and users of the preview that have switched over tell us that they're finding it easier and faster to create what they want in FastHTML. Having said that, the people that will get the most out of it and folks that haven't got much prior web dev experience -- e.g. people who have just done some streamlit/gradio/etc apps, or maybe Python…

I'm a hobby programmer and would never use the existing web ecosystem to write anything -- seems unnecessarily complicated. If I have a task to do I'll get it done in C/C++ or preferably Python. I do see the benefit of using the browser for cross platform UI under Python over say Tcl/Tk though, would this project be of help to someone like me that wants to keep it simple and just get something done for their own personal use?

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#26

Post by lyjackal » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 1:54 AM UTC

I’ve been trying out fasthtml as a more scalable prototyping tool for a side project. I’ve really enjoyed using it! I tried gradio first, but 1. didn’t like the look, and 2. You can’t really go off the beaten path. So far I’ve really enjoyed working with fast HTML and htmx. Honestly my biggest complaint on working with “Python-only” dev has been the CSS. I wanted to give the app an easy, but unique/customized look. Most CSS libraries expect to be part of a JS based build pipeline for any type of customization. bootstrap still requires scss customizations, tailwind is its own thing of configuration, pre-processors and tree shaking. Really wish there was a robust css library that relied on css-variables to customize. There are a few but they’re relatively anemic. Anyone know of any good options out there that would be a good fit, or did tailwind just eat everything up?

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#27

Post by jph00 » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 1:59 AM UTC

harel wrote: post #24

First, I welcome any project that enriches a software ecosystem, and this project no doubt does just that. However, I have two points which will deter me from using this (or any python->html/js framework) in a commercial production project: 1. It silos front end development in Python world. It might be great if your entire team are and always will be Python devs, but what happens when you want dedicated from end deve…

Regarding (1), I think you might be misunderstanding how FastHTML works. If you want to write JS code in FastHTML, then you can just do that. But you can focus entirely on using it for the bits it works well for.

For instance, I wrote a little app (https://word2md.answer.ai/ ) which lets you copy/paste from MS word, and converts it to Markdown. I found that there's some nice existing JS code for cleaning up MS Word markup, so I used that on the client side, and used server-side python code for converting that to markdown. Here's the Python code, which is just plain python in a regular python file:

https://github.com/AnswerDotAI/word2md/blob/main/main.py

And here the JS code, which is just plain JS in a regular JS file:

https://github.com/AnswerDotAI/word2md/blob/main/wordpaste.j...

Regarding (2), I've heard the same basic argument nearly every time I've tried to create anything new, and I've heard it apply to lots of other people's projects too. Yes, if there's an existing product that's pretty good already, then it's likely the new thing won't be as good in every way. I don't think that's a reason to not try to make something better, however. I like Django a lot, have used it since its very early days, and I'm friends with one of the founders of it -- it's an amazing project. But it's not perfect, and hopefully it's OK if some people want to try different things too.

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#28

Post by jph00 » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 2:00 AM UTC

lyjackal wrote: post #26

I’ve been trying out fasthtml as a more scalable prototyping tool for a side project. I’ve really enjoyed using it! I tried gradio first, but 1. didn’t like the look, and 2. You can’t really go off the beaten path. So far I’ve really enjoyed working with fast HTML and htmx. Honestly my biggest complaint on working with “Python-only” dev has been the CSS. I wanted to give the app an easy, but unique/customized look. M…

This might sound kinda retro/boring, but I've been really enjoying Bootstrap v5 -- it's come a long way! https://about.fastht.ml/ is written with it. I've started creating a FastHTML wrapper for bootstrap here:

https://github.com/AnswerDotAI/fh-bootstrap

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#29

Post by jph00 » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 2:03 AM UTC

globalnode wrote: post #25

jph00 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flask or Django users should be able to get started pretty quickly with FastHTML, and users of the preview that have switched over tell us that they're finding it easier and faster to create what they want in FastHTML. Having said that, the people that will get the most out of it and folks that haven't got much prior web dev experience -- e.g. people who have just done some streamlit/gradio/etc apps, or maybe Python…

I'm a hobby programmer and would never use the existing web ecosystem to write anything -- seems unnecessarily complicated. If I have a task to do I'll get it done in C/C++ or preferably Python. I do see the benefit of using the browser for cross platform UI under Python over say Tcl/Tk though, would this project be of help to someone like me that wants to keep it simple and just get something done for their own pers…

Yes it should be a great fit. If you give it a try, and have any issues, we have a Discord community that can help: https://discord.gg/qcXvcxMhdP

Re: FastHTML – Modern web applications in pure Python

#30

Post by skeledrew » Tue, Jul 30, 2024, 2:43 AM UTC

This looks really nice. I'm just wondering how it would combine with Pyscript, which I've been watching for a good while now. As a primarily Python user wanting to do some web dev, I'd rather not touch JS/TS at all, beyond importing 3p packages.