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

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

#21

Post by brunaxLorax »

joneholland wrote: post #17

I can’t think of a single time where my backend was literally just a crud api over entities. These toys fall apart beyond a hello world app. No validation, no authorization, no authentication, no property level permission, no events, no auditing… the list of what is actually needed for a real application goes on.

Hello ! Manifest dev here

This is a proof of concept only so it sticks to a simple CRUD set of endpoints.

Some of the features that you evoke are already on the pipe (Auth, permissions ABAC/RBAC...) but obviously it will still have limitations for more complex use cases...

I am thinking about a nice hook system to add this kind of logic somewhere else like on edge functions or external APIs. The point is to keep things simple and allow more use-cases without too much trade-off. Hard choices.

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

#24

Post by brunaxLorax »

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 to go up and running for users. It was a good choice for the proof-of-concept but we may need to change later.

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

#25

Post by kayodelycaon »

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!

I’ve got at least that many. There are a lot of flat file formats I know as well as various databases. You can even do what I did in the first program I ever wrote and use php code as a storage format. But obviously you should use Postgres.

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

#26

Post by meiraleal »

brunaxLorax wrote: post #22
SahAssar wrote: post #7

Do you mean simple or easy? It seems like you actually mean to say easy.

What is the difference between a simple backend and an easy backend ? Not sure that I pickup the nuance

Easy to use is difficult to extend beyond the framework capability. Simple is easier to.

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

#27

Post by chrsig »

brunaxLorax wrote: post #21
joneholland wrote: post #17

I can’t think of a single time where my backend was literally just a crud api over entities. These toys fall apart beyond a hello world app. No validation, no authorization, no authentication, no property level permission, no events, no auditing… the list of what is actually needed for a real application goes on.

Hello ! Manifest dev here This is a proof of concept only so it sticks to a simple CRUD set of endpoints. Some of the features that you evoke are already on the pipe (Auth, permissions ABAC/RBAC...) but obviously it will still have limitations for more complex use cases... I am thinking about a nice hook system to add this kind of logic somewhere else like on edge functions or external APIs. The point is to keep thin…

I really appreciate the simplicity of the DSL presented.

I'm curious how you see the project evolving as you add those things. How do you see it differentiating itself from rails or django?

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

#28

Post by brunaxLorax »

mariopt wrote: post #15

Any plan to plug this into an LLM and generate a backend in virtually any stack/platform? The idea seems cool, provided it supports more features like authentication type, generic middlewares, rate limiting, etc.

Definitely in my mind! Actually with Copilot you already have pretty good suggestions on autocomplete or with a prompt. But I am not sure of what would be an appropriate UI for a full-AI backend generator.
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