4 ms·

I'm building an MVP solo. Rust for the core application, Elixir for the backend, frontend, API, data layer. Javascript is pretty much non-existent, all client-

by sph 4y ago

I'm building an MVP solo. Rust for the core application, Elixir for the backend, frontend, API, data layer. Javascript is pretty much non-existent, all client-side interactivity is done by LiveView. Packaged into a podman container and deployed to a Hetzner dedicated server. Storage on PostgreSQL, probably the only thing I would rather not have to manage, but honestly single node is perfectly fine for an MVP. Provisioning is done with Terraform and Ansible. Future expansion (pretty far away, post launch and post paying customers) is add more geo-distributed worker VPSes, talking to the central coordinator via Wireguard link. Setup is pretty cheap, fast, scales really well, and it's easy to understand. With additional services (mail, monitoring, etc.) should be less than $100/mo all inclusive, and that should be enough for up to ~100 paying customers. I have no plans of changing any part of this setup for the next decade. I'm too old to want to get golden handcuffed to turn key solutions and cloud products that just introduce complexity and become VERY expensive, and badly documented, past the demo stage. Started in November, closed alpha release with users next month, launching Q2 2023.

jstx1 4y ago
If the backend, frontend, API and data layer are in Elixir, what's actually written in Rust?
- sph 4y ago
  At the core there is a custom crawler written in Rust, with the goal of eventually releasing it as an open source standalone application. But everything else, including scheduling the execution of this crawler, and parsing its output, is done on the Elixir monolith.
  - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
    Would that be in Rust for performance reasons? Elixir IME isn't as slow as some other popular languages but it's no speed demon either.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
      A crawler should be limited by the network not CPU. Outside of the language making it easier to handle multiple concurrent connections, I doubt speed would be much of a consideration.
      - kfrane 4y ago
        I'm not sure, it might be. If you're not careful, CPU can become bottleneck when you have a 10Gbit network card.
    - danudey 4y ago
      Rust also has the benefit of eliminating a ton of classes of bugs, which is great for the core of a product that connects to the network, fetches untrusted content, parses it, and (presumably) stores it somewhere. Not that you can't still have bugs, but when you can get C-levels of speed with Python-levels of safety, why not?
      - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
        "Python" levels of safety? Let's aim a little higher in life.
    - sph 4y ago
      Performance has nothing to do with it. You can imagine the application being a very specialised version of `wget`, and I like CLI system applications to be easy to distribute, with no dependencies and not requiring an entire VM to run. Erlang/Elixir is good for networked servers. For CLI apps I either choose Go or Rust, and I much prefer the latter. Since I want to make this component open source, I wanted to keep it separate from the rest of the closed source, proprietary Elixir backend. There is no wrong choice to be honest, this is mine for my startup, and I don't think I need more justification than "I am productive with it for the task at hand."
  - lairv 4y ago
    How does Elixir interacts with the Rust code ?
    - beckler 4y ago
      Via native implemented functions aka NIFs.
    - sph 4y ago
      The Rust app is kept as a standalone application. Elixir spawns the process, passes it an internal URL where it can post its output, and forgets about it, since each run might take a few minutes to hours to complete.
newaccount2021 4y ago
I love Rust and program in it a lot...but I would never use it for an MVP Rust is the tool you use when you are done prototyping, not when you are just beginning
- atmosx 4y ago
  Ah… part of the process is having fun. If ppl enjoys rust, then rust is fine :-)
- smaddox 4y ago
  Depends what you're prototyping. Rust is hard to beat for prototyping an interpreter, for example.
- earthling8118 4y ago
  Hard disagree. Rust lets me move much more quickly in many scenarios. I wouldn't want to prototype in Python for example. In my experience I'll spend too much time debugging and dealing with typing issues if i did that. Even with type hints. Having solid tooling that I can trust to help me maintain quality while moving fast and a really good ecosystem makes Rust a good choice
0x008 4y ago
But do you code in vim?
- TigerTeamX 4y ago
  Emacs.... Just kidding, of course vim

by sph 4y ago

jstx1 4y ago

If the backend, frontend, API and data layer are in Elixir, what's actually written in Rust?

sph 4y ago
At the core there is a custom crawler written in Rust, with the goal of eventually releasing it as an open source standalone application. But everything else, including scheduling the execution of this crawler, and parsing its output, is done on the Elixir monolith.
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  Would that be in Rust for performance reasons? Elixir IME isn't as slow as some other popular languages but it's no speed demon either.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
    A crawler should be limited by the network not CPU. Outside of the language making it easier to handle multiple concurrent connections, I doubt speed would be much of a consideration.
    - kfrane 4y ago
      I'm not sure, it might be. If you're not careful, CPU can become bottleneck when you have a 10Gbit network card.
  - danudey 4y ago
    Rust also has the benefit of eliminating a ton of classes of bugs, which is great for the core of a product that connects to the network, fetches untrusted content, parses it, and (presumably) stores it somewhere. Not that you can't still have bugs, but when you can get C-levels of speed with Python-levels of safety, why not?
    - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
      "Python" levels of safety? Let's aim a little higher in life.
  - sph 4y ago
    Performance has nothing to do with it. You can imagine the application being a very specialised version of `wget`, and I like CLI system applications to be easy to distribute, with no dependencies and not requiring an entire VM to run. Erlang/Elixir is good for networked servers. For CLI apps I either choose Go or Rust, and I much prefer the latter. Since I want to make this component open source, I wanted to keep it separate from the rest of the closed source, proprietary Elixir backend. There is no wrong choice to be honest, this is mine for my startup, and I don't think I need more justification than "I am productive with it for the task at hand."
- lairv 4y ago
  How does Elixir interacts with the Rust code ?
  - beckler 4y ago
    Via native implemented functions aka NIFs.
  - sph 4y ago
    The Rust app is kept as a standalone application. Elixir spawns the process, passes it an internal URL where it can post its output, and forgets about it, since each run might take a few minutes to hours to complete.

newaccount2021 4y ago

I love Rust and program in it a lot...but I would never use it for an MVP Rust is the tool you use when you are done prototyping, not when you are just beginning

atmosx 4y ago
Ah… part of the process is having fun. If ppl enjoys rust, then rust is fine :-)
smaddox 4y ago
Depends what you're prototyping. Rust is hard to beat for prototyping an interpreter, for example.
earthling8118 4y ago
Hard disagree. Rust lets me move much more quickly in many scenarios. I wouldn't want to prototype in Python for example. In my experience I'll spend too much time debugging and dealing with typing issues if i did that. Even with type hints. Having solid tooling that I can trust to help me maintain quality while moving fast and a really good ecosystem makes Rust a good choice

0x008 4y ago

But do you code in vim?

TigerTeamX 4y ago
Emacs.... Just kidding, of course vim