John McGuin

Apparently, server-side frameworks are not allowed to have client state (which most apps have, since forms are client state) nor do DOM manipulations, even if you have abstractions for syncing them. This makes as much sense as me asking most SPAs out there to not use a server.

Lots of thoughts here, where to begin… 😅 First off, he’s not wrong when he says JS frameworks have a ways to go when it comes to feature parity with Rails or Laravel. AFAIK Redwood does come ootb with Prisma, but neither Remix or Next have any kind of data ORM built in. I personally feel there is some room to explore having a standard way to access and mutate object relational data in an RSC world, and as the ecosystem around RSC matures I’m sure we will see more in this area. But man, *it is ironic* to say he wants someone to build “the next Shopify” using Laravel when *the current Shopify* is built using React and React Router. It’s worth thinking about why! As web dev has matured from the early days of Rails, various SaaS pieces have emerged that let frameworks focus more on what they do best instead of worrying about offering “the full stack” experience. Example: email. Instead of setting up and running sendmail on your own VPS, most devs these days prefer to use a SaaS email provider. Yeah it’s more expensive, but this is definitely one category where you get what you pay for. Another great example is data. While I don’t disagree that we could do something more for object relational data storage, there is a whole class of databases that have emerged since the dawn of Rails that just don’t fit that model. NoSQL, KV, big data, elastic search. Prisma isn’t really built for these, but all of them are likely things you’ll use at some point when you’re building “the next Shopify”. So if we gave you a traditional ORM style abstraction ootb in Remix, it would likely just serve a subset of your data needs. Again, we have some work to do in this area, but consider that maybe the lack of an ORM in Remix isn’t actually a huge blocker for people who are building the current generation of real production web apps. Because they are already building them with React and React Router. And it isn’t just Shopify! React Router has been used on MANY of the most significant web apps of the past decade. Netflix, AirBnB, Dropbox, Twitter and hundreds of others. So don’t be so dismissive! While you’re hoping someone will build “the next” big app using Laravel, consider that they are already building their apps using React and React Router.

The todo application. 😅 But, seriously, here's the thing... When Laravel and Rails developers say "full stack", they mean something totally different than when Next or Remix (React Router?) developers say "full stack". In Laravel and Rails, it means there are built-in, opinionated solutions to things like validation, interacting with a database, authenticating users, scheduling background work, sending an email. In Next and Remix, it seems to mean that there is simply the bare ability to run code on the server at all and an advertisement for Clerk. 🙃 From my perspective, Next and others are really, really great at the GET part of web development. Get data from some backend, show it on the page quickly. 👌 They are not mature for POST, PUT, and DELETE, especially when things start getting non-trivial. And, I don't think this is really unique to Next or a single framework. It's something that seems to pervade current JavaScript as a whole - note the current proliferation of "starter kits" that try to bring some sanity to the full-stack story. I think this has had actual consequences in the JavaScript ecosystem... Rails and Laravel were built with the express purpose of allowing a single developer to build the next GitHub... or the next AirBnb... or the next Shopify. Prototyped from beginning to end. That's what I'm passionate about. Empowering a single developer or small team to build something amazing. I built the 1.0 of Laravel Forge, Envoyer, Vapor, Spark, and the backend of Nova by myself. $40M in revenue over 10 years from my home office. That's an empowering tool for a solo founder. I don't see a full-stack story in JavaScript yet that would allow me to realistically sit down and build something like Forge or Vapor from start to finish. Maybe I'm missing it. 🤷‍♂️ The MVP start-ups I do see fully built on current JS meta frameworks are much thinner. The stereotypical API call to an AI service. Not much meat on the bones. Laravel / Rails have been building their modern front end story with Hotwire, Livewire, Inertia, and more... Next and others are building their modern back end story. Smart people on both sides working on these problems, so I'm confident we'll both get to where we want to go. 💪