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I really don't think it's fair to call it gatekeeping. The blog title is about using "Sveltekit for full-stack web app development" but if you want to make a fu

by davedx 5y ago

I really don't think it's fair to call it gatekeeping. The blog title is about using "Sveltekit for full-stack web app development" but if you want to make a full-stack web app, you need more than Sveltekit. Words mean things.

capableweb 5y ago
> but if you want to make a full-stack web app, you need more than Sveltekit. To create a full-stack web app you need a frontend and a backend. That's it. You can build a full-stack web app with just NodeJS and HTML files if you so wish (or even write HTML templates in your http handlers from the backend). Nothing in "full-stack" requires having a validation library in order for it to be full-stack, that would more be leaning towards the "batteries included" approach to a framework instead of strictly being about "full-stack". When you frame your argument in a way that implies "it's not a real framework/tool for real life applications unless it has X" is almost exactly how I'd write an example of gatekeeping if I had to.
- mirzap 5y ago
  No it's not just it. That's small part of it. If you need to pull 30 other packages to your backend or frontend, then your "full stack framework" is not full stack. Check .NET, SpringBoot or even Laravel to some degree to see how "full stack" really looks like. It's entire ecosystem. You rarely go outside of that. Can you develop modern app (with db access, caching, queues, messaging etc.) with just SvelteKit or just Next.js (and their official packages) as dependency? No, you can't. Not without pulling 20 other 3rd party packages. Thus, those are not full stack frameworks. They are nice and convinient opinionated frameworks, that speed up development, but you always relay on other packages to complete the stack.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    Yeah, I guess we have different definitions for them. What you're talking about is what I'd call a "batteries-included" framework, which exists both as frontend, backend and full-stack frameworks. Full-stack just means that you can write your frontend and backend with it, not the amount of functionality it has within.
    - tacker2000 5y ago
      But backend means precisely these things. ORM, DB migrations, caching, etc. You need that for a solid backend. Of course not everybody needs messaging queues for example , but some frameworks support this out of the box and/or have years of integration with popular queues like rabbitmq to look back onto. Imagine how many integration bugs were already solved in that time, which this new framework still has to iron out. Time and experience mean something.
      - capableweb 5y ago
        Well, for you, apparently, it does mean those things. But for plenty of us, it doesn't. Why would I need an ORM/DB migrations if everything lives on disk? Why'd I need caching when I already run Varnish in front of the backend? Point being (again), definitions seem to differ, and what you call "full stack" is what I call "batteries-included framework". Full stack simply means (for me) that it gives you a way of building frontend and backend code, but implies nothing about what functionality is included in either part.
      - slantyyz 5y ago
        You make it sound like none of these things exist. Sveltekit is part of the NodeJS ecosystem, and there are mature libraries that do many of those things. The only thing is that Sveltekit isn't force feeding any particular library down your throat. When I moved over from Express, I pretty much just continued using the libraries I was already using. If you look at how a lot of people actually use Sveltekit, it seems like they're outsourcing a lot of things like data storage and authentication to third party services. What benefit is provided to those users by baking in functions they don't need?
        jf22 5y ago
        >What benefit is provided to those users by baking in functions they don't need? A full-stack experience...
        slantyyz 5y ago
- jf22 5y ago
  Of course it's gatekeeping. You need certain feature to be considered a full-stack framework. There are plenty of examples of full-stack apps out there. SveltKit has almost none of the features you need to build a full app. It should be noted in my limited experience I found SveltKit to be really great, but it's barely 1.0 yet, let alone "full stack".
detaro 5y ago
> Words mean things. And as the reaction here shows, for lots of people "Full-Stack Web App development" means "spanning frontend and backend", not "frontend and backend and everything you could need for a complex product". And that seems to be shared by many other sources.
- MadcapJake 5y ago
  Interesting note: the Sveltekit home page never says "full stack" and describes itself as "framework for building web applications of all sizes, with a beautiful development experience and flexible filesystem-based routing". Almost like the SvelteKit folks are aware of the potential gotcha from calling it a "full stack" frameworks. That being said, I am in the "this is full stack" camp due to prior art in the JS community. RoR/Django and their language communities have always been more about including all the parts (one could call it a "complete stack" style) and the JS community has always been about modularity. EmberJS strikes me as the last bastion of complete stack framework in JS (curious if there are others that are lesser known)
timeon 5y ago
That is why the title is not "Sveltekit as full-stack web app development"
- pc86 5y ago
  How is "Sveltekit as full-stack web app development" meaningfully different from "SvelteKit for Full-Stack Web App Development"?
  - sigzero 5y ago
    It's not in the context of the content of the article.

by davedx 5y ago

capableweb 5y ago

> but if you want to make a full-stack web app, you need more than Sveltekit. To create a full-stack web app you need a frontend and a backend. That's it. You can build a full-stack web app with just NodeJS and HTML files if you so wish (or even write HTML templates in your http handlers from the backend). Nothing in "full-stack" requires having a validation library in order for it to be full-stack, that would more be leaning towards the "batteries included" approach to a framework instead of strictly being about "full-stack". When you frame your argument in a way that implies "it's not a real framework/tool for real life applications unless it has X" is almost exactly how I'd write an example of gatekeeping if I had to.

mirzap 5y ago
No it's not just it. That's small part of it. If you need to pull 30 other packages to your backend or frontend, then your "full stack framework" is not full stack. Check .NET, SpringBoot or even Laravel to some degree to see how "full stack" really looks like. It's entire ecosystem. You rarely go outside of that. Can you develop modern app (with db access, caching, queues, messaging etc.) with just SvelteKit or just Next.js (and their official packages) as dependency? No, you can't. Not without pulling 20 other 3rd party packages. Thus, those are not full stack frameworks. They are nice and convinient opinionated frameworks, that speed up development, but you always relay on other packages to complete the stack.
- capableweb 5y ago
  Yeah, I guess we have different definitions for them. What you're talking about is what I'd call a "batteries-included" framework, which exists both as frontend, backend and full-stack frameworks. Full-stack just means that you can write your frontend and backend with it, not the amount of functionality it has within.
  - tacker2000 5y ago
    But backend means precisely these things. ORM, DB migrations, caching, etc. You need that for a solid backend. Of course not everybody needs messaging queues for example , but some frameworks support this out of the box and/or have years of integration with popular queues like rabbitmq to look back onto. Imagine how many integration bugs were already solved in that time, which this new framework still has to iron out. Time and experience mean something.
    - capableweb 5y ago
      Well, for you, apparently, it does mean those things. But for plenty of us, it doesn't. Why would I need an ORM/DB migrations if everything lives on disk? Why'd I need caching when I already run Varnish in front of the backend? Point being (again), definitions seem to differ, and what you call "full stack" is what I call "batteries-included framework". Full stack simply means (for me) that it gives you a way of building frontend and backend code, but implies nothing about what functionality is included in either part.
    - slantyyz 5y ago
      You make it sound like none of these things exist. Sveltekit is part of the NodeJS ecosystem, and there are mature libraries that do many of those things. The only thing is that Sveltekit isn't force feeding any particular library down your throat. When I moved over from Express, I pretty much just continued using the libraries I was already using. If you look at how a lot of people actually use Sveltekit, it seems like they're outsourcing a lot of things like data storage and authentication to third party services. What benefit is provided to those users by baking in functions they don't need?
      - jf22 5y ago
        >What benefit is provided to those users by baking in functions they don't need? A full-stack experience...
        slantyyz 5y ago
jf22 5y ago
Of course it's gatekeeping. You need certain feature to be considered a full-stack framework. There are plenty of examples of full-stack apps out there. SveltKit has almost none of the features you need to build a full app. It should be noted in my limited experience I found SveltKit to be really great, but it's barely 1.0 yet, let alone "full stack".

detaro 5y ago

> Words mean things. And as the reaction here shows, for lots of people "Full-Stack Web App development" means "spanning frontend and backend", not "frontend and backend and everything you could need for a complex product". And that seems to be shared by many other sources.

MadcapJake 5y ago
Interesting note: the Sveltekit home page never says "full stack" and describes itself as "framework for building web applications of all sizes, with a beautiful development experience and flexible filesystem-based routing". Almost like the SvelteKit folks are aware of the potential gotcha from calling it a "full stack" frameworks. That being said, I am in the "this is full stack" camp due to prior art in the JS community. RoR/Django and their language communities have always been more about including all the parts (one could call it a "complete stack" style) and the JS community has always been about modularity. EmberJS strikes me as the last bastion of complete stack framework in JS (curious if there are others that are lesser known)

timeon 5y ago

That is why the title is not "Sveltekit as full-stack web app development"

pc86 5y ago
How is "Sveltekit as full-stack web app development" meaningfully different from "SvelteKit for Full-Stack Web App Development"?
- sigzero 5y ago
  It's not in the context of the content of the article.