[paulsmith]

The imagined use-case for Pushup is the same niche that Rails, Django, and Flask apps occupy, which is a wide range but broadly I would describe as page-oriented, HTML-first, server-side frontends.

I started Pushup because I asked myself, I like programming in Go and think (like you) it's great for web backends - but what is holding it back from being a great full-stack web dev language or environment? net/http is a great building block, and html/template is solid, but I felt more was needed. Like opinionated project directory structure, for one. But also the world has changed since 2006 when Rails and Django debuted.

Obviously, we live in a world in which React and the SPA is seemingly dominant, but projects like htmx have recently shown that you can achieve modern UI/UX in the browser on a server-side app, which less JavaScript. BTW, more and more JavaScript frameworks, like Remix, are (re-)discovering the value of SSR.

I was also motivated to give an old-school mod_php feel of, just add a file and you automatically get a URL route. That's a nice developer experience but also good for long-term project maintenance.

Finally I was struck by this essay[1] about the demise of the "mildly dynamic" site. There is a wide diversity of types of sites and apps, from quick experiments and prototypes, small-to-medium sites of many kinds. But also since it's Go, I think it could scale up on performance to large-scale sites, and as a static binary, be nicely suited to edge apps like fly.io.

[1] https://www.devever.net/~hl/mildlydynamic

[mxuribe]

First off @paulsmith, thanks for creating Pushup! I've been meaning to learn Go, and in particular in web context...and I've always been a fan of the "mildly dynamic" approach to web sites, web apps. So, I will certainly dive in. Secondly, thank you for sharing that article that inspired you. I kept nodding along so much while reading that article, it was like i was a bobblehead! I don't code much over the last decade or more, but when i do (for web anyway), i almost always employ php in the "mildly dynamic" method...Because its easy and solves needs that come up. Thanks again!!

[kcartlidge]

I have to be honest, I don't like the aesthetics. I know that's a trivial point, but if you're working in something for a living it matters. The suggestions elsewhere of using "<?go ?>" or similar look better to my eyes. I'd also be concerned that by the time there are enough features in it to support more complex sites, the learning curve will be enough that you may as well use Go directly. I could easily be wrong about that, and I know others will see value, so YMMV as we say.

That isn't to say I have any negative comment about your project on its own terms and merits, just that it isn't for me.

However I do thank you for the link to the "mildly dynamic" page. In addition to Go I also do C#, Node, Python, and others. Those others include PHP (on and off since PHP 3). For serious stuff I'm usually managed (or persuaded) into using anything other than PHP, but on the odd times I do use it the feeling is quite different from the rest and hard to explain. It feels like that linked page comes closest to explaining it for me, so cheers!

[hlandau]

As the author of the above article I saw Pushup the other day and thought it looked interesting. If people are being inspired to bring back this sort of approach to webdev that makes me happy. Good stuff!

It's still a hard rule of mine that a website must work without JS and use progressive enhancement - I won't accept less in my own work. A lot of "modern" web frameworks get automatically disqualified when I evaluate them for this reason.

[warrentr]

Really great explanation, thanks. I've definitely felt a bit silly spinning up an entire react project for a "mildly dynamic" site