Ask HN: What is your preferred light weight stack for personal projects? What do you reach for when you want to spin up a side project or proof of concept quickly? Lately, I've been partial to next.js, tailwind, and firebase. Curious what others are using; I'm in the mood to learn something new! |
``` <?php include('header.inc.php'); <?php include SOME PAGE BASED ON URL ?> <?php include('footer.inc.php'); ```
And <script> tags of course, with vanilla JS. Super quick and reliable. No layers.
To answer OP's sibling question, I don't do any authentication with projects I consider lightweight.
(:
I’ve talked about it more here: https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/How%20I%20write%20this%20blog...
But the gist is that you have a Caddyfile like:
http://localhost, notes.alinpanaitiu.com {
root * /static/notes/
file_server
templates {
mime text/html text/plain text/xml
}
encode zstd gzip
try_files {path} /index.html?path={path}
}
This comes with the benefit of automatic HTTPS, asset compression and a one binary server.
Deploying is as simple as copying the folder with the Caddyfile and assets to my public server and running “caddy run”
- Django+AlpineJS+HTMX
- Hugo+ Netlify for static landing page with a custom form linking to GForms.
PoC: Python + file system as a database
If I actually use it a lot or performance is bad then I tweak the stack. Usually persistence is the first thing upgraded to SQLite. Then, if it's an HTTP project, I usually throw in jinja2 templates to make editing the layout is easier. Finally, if it's something I expect to always be up I'll rewrite it in Rust.
PoC w/ web front end: Python + file system as a database + fastAPI/Flask + HTML/JS/CSS as python strings
Rust doesn't have everything under the sun, so sometimes I'll split the service into two: one which handles requests over a named pipe or unix socket in python and the front end in rust.
Rust Services w/ web front end: Rust + axum + askama + SQLite via tokio-rusqlite Python Services: Python + asyncio using asyncio.loop.add_reader and file descriptors to attach to the named pipe or unix socket.
For the backend I'll use MySQL or PostgreSQL and language/framework I'm interested in, e.g. Go+libs, F#/Giraffe, Elixir/Phoenix, Kotlin/Javalin+JDBI, etc. Even Python/Web2py or Php/Yii2 or Ruby/Rails works alright sometimes.
I'm not much of a fan of ORMs that have a dsl that differs from SQL query composition patterns, JPQL/Hibernate is pretty bad.
Edit: If I were to make a typical/bland mobile app, I'd probably use Dart/Flutter rather than native (and certainly not React-native).
Native downloadable executable desktop GUI application: Node.JS, GraderJS
CLI app: ??? Don't know yet, GraderJS can work but it's focused around GUI
Mobile app: ??? Don't know yet
Embedded: ??? Don't know yet
Graphics: Processing (but surely there are much better options nowadays)
AI: ??? Don't know yet
Server: Deno or Rust
Database: Postgres
Hosting: Cloudflare Pages and fly.io
---
Front-end is usually the complex part, so I focus on that first. Elm creates fast and clean front-ends (and the community packages never have bugs), so I embed Elm when the UI demands extra complexity.
I generally keep my server code _extremely_ light-weight. I shove most of the complexity of my systems into the database queries, where it's easy to optimize.
I also find it useful to organize my API into "one POST for each button" and "one GET for each table".
---
I'm a fan of Node/Svelte(I've never started a new project in it but I have enjoyed working on existing stuff in it).
For new work I'll almost always be using Python, CherryPy, and a Vue3/Websockets based approach, usually with quite a few supporting libraries.
I also use a lot of Mako templating, but I'm moving away from that as Mako doesn't have good IDE support and it can get in the way of realtime responsiveness.
If there will be content involved, which there often is, I'll use Showdown to render markdown.
One technology I really want to work with more is Microsoft's Adaptive Cards, they will likely be finding their way into my projects soon.
Against my better judgement I do have a project idea in mind at the moment, but it would need either Dart or Kotlin, and the backend would probably be MQTT, although anything personal project sized would be trashed instantly by a DDoS since part of the design involves an open public backend with all the security on the client.
And of course, if my project is embedded, ESP32+Arduino all the way, At $5 or so, there's rarely any reason to use a bare MCU or anything that doesn't have WiFi unless you're doing mass production.
One thing I never touch for anything personal is a database. No postgres, no mysql, none of it. If I need one I use sqlite.
If nobody is paying for I'm not doing sysadmin work at home. My stuff is all unzip and run, with dependencies from the Debian or language package repos.
I don't use Docker or Kubernetes or anything like that, because I avoid anything microservice-like, or anything that requires an external process with nontrivial configuration. Needing an MQTT broker or relying on an external daemon for something very big and complex like Zigbee2mqtt is about as far as I'll go.
Even apache/php is too much config for me. I have very little tolerance for system level configuration needed to support one specific app, and messing with containers isn't my idea of fun either.
Obviously you move on from it, but Im unaware of anything with pretty much everything in one place like it.
Recently I've been using Dart and Flutter. I can't complain at all.
Python for things related to libraries, etc.
backend: a nasty hybrid of NodeJS, zsh and SQLite3
i also interested in systems based on websockets and webgl but that's another project