Possible Stacks

I asked Twitter the following question: “If you wanted to build and deploy a very simple web app using TDD and automated unit tests as part of the deployment pipeline, an inexperienced coder, what language / platform / deployment pipeline would you use? We’re looking for low friction, quick results, low learning curve.”

Below started out as a summary of the answers I got. I expected it will probably get added to over time.

I’m splitting them by language because that seemed a reasonable way of looking at it.

Javascript

Heroku / Node.js / React / Jest

@worldofchris (Chris Young)

  • Deployment / pipeline: Heroku
  • Backend: Node.js
  • Unit tests: Jest
  • Front end: React ([my React notes])](/pages/coding/webdev/js/React))
  • Front end tests: Jest

Heroku + Git / Node.js

@thinkfoo (Dave Hounslow)

  • Deployment / pipeline: Heroku + Git
  • Backend: Node.js
  • Unit tests: ?
  • Front end: ?
  • Front end tests: ?

Github actions + Heroku / Node.js + Express / Jest / React + Create-react-app

@jocrossick

create-react-app - getting-started

  • Deployment / pipeline: Github actions + Heroku
  • Backend: Node.js + Express
  • Unit tests: Jest
  • Front end: React via create-react-app ([my create-react-app notes])](/pages/coding/webdev/js/React#create-react-app))
  • Front end tests: create-react-app

Github actions + Netlify / React + Create-react-app

@fidgetfive (Matt)

  • Deployment / pipeline: Github actions + Netlify
  • Backend: ?
  • Unit tests: ?
  • Front end: React via create-react-app ([my create-react-app notes])](/pages/coding/webdev/js/React#create-react-app))
  • Front end tests: Create-react-app

Github actions + Netlify / React

@coderbyheart (Markus Tacker)

An example app

(“It has tests for plain JS libraries and React components. Tests are run using GitHub actions. On success, deployed to Netlify. PRs are tested and deployed to preview URLs.”)

  • Deployment / pipeline: Github actions + Netlify
  • Backend: ?
  • Unit tests: ?
  • Front end: React ([my React notes])](/pages/coding/webdev/js/React))
  • Front end tests: ?

Docker / Node.js + Express / Static pages / Cypress

@DinoRoar2 (John Nicholas)

  • Deployment / pipeline: Docker
  • Backend: Node.js + Express
  • Unit tests: ?
  • Front end: Static pages, very simple routing
  • Front end tests: Cypress, or just architect it so you can fire a load of - rest calls and not have to worry about setup/teardown. Like why - If you know - you want e2e tests - do people design so that they have to reset the dB - between tests? How is that a good tradeoff? What are the alternatives this - wins against? You end up with something way simpler imo. Esp if your tests - leave v easy to recognise data.
  • Data store: json

Simple http server / Node.js + Express / Http / Cypress

@LewisDaleUK

  • Deployment / pipeline: Simple http server
  • Backend: Node.js + Express
  • Unit tests: ?
  • Front end: Http
  • Front end tests: Cypress

Python

Python/Flask / Pytest / Ruby + Rails / rspec

@worldofchris (Chris Young)

  • Deployment / pipeline: ?
  • Backend: Python / Flask
  • Unit tests: Pytest
  • Front end: Ruby + Rails
  • Front end tests: rspec

Heroku / Python/Flask / Pytest

@nimphal (Nevelina A)

  • Deployment / pipeline: Heroku
  • Backend: Python / Flask
  • Unit tests: Pytest
  • Front end: ?
  • Front end tests: ?

Ruby

Python + Ruby + Rails

Github actions + Heroku / Ruby / Sinatra / rspec

@adomas_s (Adomas Sliužinskas)

This is what I’ve used to create a lot of simple webapps. Examples are listed here.

  • Deployment / pipeline: Github actions + Heroku
  • Backend: Ruby
  • Unit tests: rspec
  • Front end: Ruby + Sinatra
  • Front end tests: rspec

Django + Python

Django is the ruby on Rails of Python. Has great documentation (better than Rails according to the person I spoke to), and does database migrations automatically.

  • Deployment / pipeline: ?
  • Backend: Python
  • Unit tests: ?
  • Front end: Django
  • Front end tests: ?

Kotlin

http4k

@natpryce

  • “http4k. The “server-as-a-function“ model makes testing a breeze.”
  • From http4k.org: “http4k is an HTTP toolkit written in Kotlin that enables the serving and consuming of HTTP services in a functional and consistent way. … Written in pure, functional Kotlin, with zero dependencies. http4k is simple. Like, really simple. No static API magic, no annotations, no reflection.”

Go

Go + gin

@dmlled (DLed)

Go + TDD

@quii (Chris James)