If I were to start today, I would probably start with something else. But this stack has served me well for years, and still going strong with 36 apps and counting. I'm constantly evolving it as the tech progresses.
- Typescript is a compelling alternative combined with Cloudflare Workers for backend. Cheap and unlimited scalability while not dealing with servers just sounds too good. Database side is not there yet, but I believe it'll come soon.
I know that there are other solutions using Docker for scalability, but it becomes expensive. v8 is what made this possible, and it'll only continue to get better as it's one of the most used software in the world. Python will never get that kind of effort.
- C# and .net 6 is another strong contender today with cross platform support and Microsoft's new open source approach. I'm currently rewriting one of the apps in c# for an enterprise contract and using reflection and code generation, I can do most of the things that I use metaprogramming in Python. And compared to Python, it's a lot faster and I can use things like multi threading without much effort.
After happily writing in dynamically typed languages for 10+ years, I'm slowly moving towards static typing.
Thank you for the detailed answer, much appreciated.
Some follow up questions/comments:
JS and therefore TS is the a key programming language of the internet. Where would you learn Typescript today if you would start from scratch? Is learning JS necessary for that?
Interesting to hear about your choice to opt for a dive into the .NET ecosystem. Would you consider F# a wise choice here, or is it better to forgo it and stay on C# for good?
I prefer "Learn x the hard way" style of learning for beginners, but no idea about resources for TS. When I'm learning a new language, I first read about the language to map the concepts I know to the paradigms of the language, look up style conventions, then just start building.
Re: C#/F#
The contract I'm on requires using C# so I don't have a choice in here. But I'm planning to explore F# more after this. The main reason of me going into .NET is almost all government software purchases where I live requires .NET and C#, and I want to tap into that market for new opportunities.
Mostly industry specific apps that solves specific business problems. Some fintech apps, a few realtime collaboration apps, a few IOT type apps... Most of them are for clients that I've built during my solo freelancing years.
Backend: Python / SqlAlchemy
DB: Postgres
Cache: Redis
Frontend: React / Redux / Emotion / Socket.io
Reverse Proxy: Traefik
Marketing Site: Next.js
CDN/File hosting: Cloudflare, R2
Backups: Tarsnap
Deployment: Docker / Docker Compose
Server configuration: Ansible
Mobile: React Native
Payments: Stripe
Email (Transactional/Marketing): Postmark
If I were to start today, I would probably start with something else. But this stack has served me well for years, and still going strong with 36 apps and counting. I'm constantly evolving it as the tech progresses.