Ask HN: Do you use automated tools to create APIs, or do you code them manually?

Re:Ask HN: Do you use automated tools to create APIs, or do ... by pier25 on Monday June 24, 2019 @03:36PM (#20267566)

We switched from a small Node Hapi monolith to Go at the end of 2017. The main reason to switch was that we wanted to get types to get more explicit code. We considered a number of options (TypeScript, .NET Core, Dart, etc) and ended up picking Go because it's a nice simple language and the performance is great over Node.

We reduced memory usage by 80% over Node. We never had a performance bottleneck with Node either but it feels nice to be running on the smallest Heroku dyno and knowing you won't need much more for at least a couple of years.

As for the developer experience we vastly prefer Go over JavaScript. It's more tedious at times but there is no more ambiguity. We love that we barely need any dependencies. Moving from JS to Go was extremely easy as all devs in our team are polyglots and Go is pretty simple. I don't know how easy it would be for a JS only dev, but I imagine it wouldn't be too hard.

When using NPM/Node/JavaScript it seems there are always hidden dangers, probably more in the front end than when doing backend Node. With Go there are no surprises, everything feels solid and predictable.

After about 2 years with Go we are still happy with the decision.

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Re:Ask HN: Do you use automated tools to create APIs, or do ... by goddtriffin on Monday June 24, 2019 @07:03PM (#20269444)

Thanks for the detailed response! I was definitely going to ask 'why not TypeScript?' if your issue was mainly types, but you beat me to it! I reached similar conclusions regarding the benefits you witnessed switching to GO; it's nice seeing them spelled out.

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