Re:Writing web applications using only the Go Standard Library
by grey-area on Friday December 23, 2016 @08:50PM
(#13248194)
I mostly agree. Things you'll need in a more sophisticated app which are not in the stdlib and would be tedious to reinvent each time: named params, auth, csrf, nested templates, minified and fingerprinted css/js, grpc as you mention, wysiwyg editing, stats, oauth etc.
Many projects will only need a few of these, some will need all, and almost all non-trivial code needs third party libraries of some kind. Using go just for services and writing your ui in js just means you're shifting those problems into js libraries, and now you have 350,000 problems, including left-pad.
I agree this hostility to a 'framework' (a.k.a. a bunch of libraries) while containing some truth, has become a damaging religion. Library authors in Go tend to stress they are not writing a framework to appease the anti-framework gods, and new users are told to just use the stdlib without the caveat that larger projects will require more structure and pkgs from elsewhere.
The main reasons new users and in particular beginners look for a framework to get started with are quite simple - it provides guidance as to best practices, provides reassurance when they face unfamiliar problems, and gives them a community to ask questions in if they get stuck. None of these are unhealthy reasons.
I do understand and sympathise with the hostility in some quarters to frameworks as monolithic bags of code which everyone imports and uses when they don't have to, but feel this hostility is being cargo-culted on places like reddit rather than understood as an admonition not to unthinkingly import lots of code.
Many projects will only need a few of these, some will need all, and almost all non-trivial code needs third party libraries of some kind. Using go just for services and writing your ui in js just means you're shifting those problems into js libraries, and now you have 350,000 problems, including left-pad.
I agree this hostility to a 'framework' (a.k.a. a bunch of libraries) while containing some truth, has become a damaging religion. Library authors in Go tend to stress they are not writing a framework to appease the anti-framework gods, and new users are told to just use the stdlib without the caveat that larger projects will require more structure and pkgs from elsewhere.
The main reasons new users and in particular beginners look for a framework to get started with are quite simple - it provides guidance as to best practices, provides reassurance when they face unfamiliar problems, and gives them a community to ask questions in if they get stuck. None of these are unhealthy reasons.
I do understand and sympathise with the hostility in some quarters to frameworks as monolithic bags of code which everyone imports and uses when they don't have to, but feel this hostility is being cargo-culted on places like reddit rather than understood as an admonition not to unthinkingly import lots of code.