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Choosing the Right Tech Stack: A Developer's Decision-Making Guide

Lucas Lima do Nascimento on October 28, 2024

Introduction Hello there, dear reader! So, you’re at that spot, you’re beginning a new project and now, you have to choose which tec...
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programmerraja profile image
Boopathi

This is a fantastic guide! I especially appreciate the emphasis on evaluating project requirements before jumping into specific technologies. It's so easy to get caught up in the hype of the latest tools.

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llxd profile image
Lucas Lima do Nascimento • Edited

Thanks a lot for the comment, @programmerraja! And I agree, it's truly easy to get caught up in the hype (and ending up creating projects that will be eternal pains).

A great resource if you'd like to learn a little bit further is the boring technology manifesto!

Give it a look and tell me what you think ;)

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programmerraja profile image
Boopathi

Yeah definitely will check it out thanks for sharing

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llxd profile image
Lucas Lima do Nascimento

You're totally welcome! ;)

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anmolbaranwal profile image
Anmol Baranwal

There are too many options these days :)

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llxd profile image
Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Hey @anmolbaranwal!

And yes, I do agree that there are many options (too many to keep track of) out there and that might or might not be a problem.

A great website to check to compare how the feeling of a bunch of stacks feel like is this one: TodoMVC. They create the same app, over and over again using different stacks, for you to check the differences quickly haha

Thanks for the comment ;)

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eshimischi profile image
eshimischi

Including jQuery in 2024/25 is kinda.. strange
Nothing about Bun/ElysiaJS
Nothing about Astro
SolidJS not mentioned but Qwik

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llxd profile image
Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Hey @eshimischi, thanks for the comment.

The major point being made is to evaluate other things besides the technology per se, so, yes, there are great pieces of tech missing in my example list, but they're just that, examples -- there are a ton of solid tools out there. The whole idea is: tech is just a tool in your belt, not a competition of which is better than the other.

In terms of

Including jQuery in 2024/25 is kinda.. strange

I honestly don't think so. Although jQuery is old, there are use-cases for it, and, besides that, it's still used largely by most of the web most visited websites (~75% to be precise). Can you mention why do you think it's strange?

JQuery usage

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andre_adpc profile image
Andre Du Plessis

Spot-on you are.

The same goes for the "so-hated-PHP" more than half the globe's apps are still using it at some level, not to mention the "slow-moving" enterprises out there. And for financial institutions, like banking some blatantly refuse to drop their COBOL-based "bean counters" labouring away on the basement mainframes, LOL.

All the tools, like you said, were created for some or other reason. It might be compared with the extremely diverse ecosystem we so ignorantly "step on" every day. The myriad of organisms involved in maintaining (or attempting to) balance is staggering. Software is still in its nappies compared to its diversity. Yeah, we can set a screw into a chunk of lumber with a hammer, for sure, and quickly too!

Is it the best way to go about it? Well...

At the end of the day, tungsten is tungsten, and yeah, fancy, nano-tech graphene looks oh so enticing, but it won't outwork a tungsten carbide tip and costs orders of magnitude more to get the same job done.

I fail to understand why good, solid tech, no matter how "ancient" or "juvenile" it may be is always played off against each other... Oh, wait.... It's a new, novel way of making "new", "novel" money!!! LOL

Thanks for taking the time to write and share, Lucas . It is a valuable lesson to both teach and learn.

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llxd profile image
Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Fully agreed and well written comment @andre_adpc!

Envisioning everything as a complex ecosystem of tools and technologies is the key to watch it from a rational perspective, and, by doing so, we grow together with it -- which for me, is the most amazing part of it all.

Thanks for the comment and the compliments ;)

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eshimischi profile image
eshimischi • Edited

No blame. About jQuery, the more we carry any legacy lib or framework together with us, more it will never die. 90% of that 77% used cases i think is jQuery added during first round of development, no one cared to refactor it later. Not saying it is bad, but again things are going forward with web dev

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llxd profile image
Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Hey @eshimischi, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I get where you’re coming from. Regarding the 90% part, I doubt that’s entirely accurate, but let’s go with it for the sake of argument. The reality is that legacy systems are a huge part of development, and they aren’t always refactored simply because they’re still effective (or the refactor would take a time that business doesn't necessarily have to allocate on that, and, although we love the code, without the business, no one would use it). jQuery, for instance, may be old, but it's still functional and widespread for a reason—it has powered countless sites for years, and in many cases, it just works.

And I'm not the only one with that line of thought. The jQuery team actually is working on the v4 for a ton of time and they're probably releasing it in the near-coming future. If their perception about their tool was that it was dead (or at least dying) they wouldn't spend time on it.

Modern frameworks definitely bring powerful new features and flexibility, but it's important to remember that they’re the newcomers on the timeline. That doesn’t mean jQuery or other established tools are outdated in every context; it just shows the evolution of web dev (and we, as engineers, should always look at that with our rational lenses on -- without favoristims -- they're only tools, after all). Both "legacy" and modern tools have their place, depending on the situation and project needs.

Thanks and see you around ;)

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eshimischi profile image
eshimischi
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charles_roth_8c0df94d211a profile image
Charles Roth

Also consider how rock-solid the application has to be, how long it will last, how much it will change over time, and how many other people will need to work on it.

I just left a project with >1M lines of code, 20 developers, and scores of millions of users. (Retired, left with good wishes, etc.) Back-end? Java. Far fewer runtime errors than (say) Python or PHP. 75% unit-test coverage. Front-end? Tapestry... although I'd replace that with Angular if I could.

OTOH, a small, 3-part-time volunteer project for politics? A mix of python/flask, and PHP/Smarty/Twig. Different contexts, different tools.

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Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Really awesome comment @charles_roth_8c0df94d211a (and glad to see that you retired! 🚀). Thanks!

Totally agreed in terms of considering more things (although I think it's somewhat really hard to try to predict the longevity of an application), but totally agree -- different context, different tooling!

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Andrew Baisden

Infinite options: I used Hono for the first time in a project. Its pretty cool and lightweight.

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Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Hey @andrewbaisden! So glad to hear that you're trying out new things and checking them for yourself! I still have to try Hono, BTW, it looks really cool :)

Thanks for the comment and see you around ;)

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Anna Grabar

Pictures - art !
Great article.

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Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Thanks a lot, @anna_grabar! Glad that you enjoyed it 🚀

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lucabotti profile image
Luca Botti

Missing Django - The web framework for perfectionists with deadlines to the list. Along with AI/ML/Data Analysis, Python is ideal also for web development.

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Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Hey @lucabotti! Just to recap, the post idea is to just talk about the decision-making process rather than tools/tech by themselves, but you're right! Never quite used Django myself (I've been working with Ruby on Rails and React for the last 3 years basically) but I've heard a lot of it and it sure is reliable!

Thanks for the comment and I might update the article to reflect this process > tool more (or simply add Django to the list too).

Thanks and see ya ;)

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claritiv profile image
Claritiv

Helpful

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Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Thanks! Glad that I could provide some helpful info ;)

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rcls profile image
OssiDev

Sometimes you can also just use a language, like Go, without any framework to achieve the same results on the back-end. All solutions don't have to involve frameworks.

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Lucas Lima do Nascimento

Really important point!

Indeed, frameworks are not needed for developing great solutions, but, to be fair, for me, it seems kind of rare the case where using a framework (or a micro-framework in the cases the project is really small) will do more harm than good, but, my vision might be biased by the JS ecosystem, which is the one I'm more of a part.

How does that works on the Go ecosystem?

Thanks for the comment, @rcls!

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