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Show HN: Wasp – DSL/framework for building full-stack web apps – now in beta

115 pointsby matijashover 2 years ago
Hey HN! Wasp (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;</a>) is a simple config language (DSL) and framework for building full-stack web apps. You describe the high-level features you want (auth, CRUD, async jobs, …) using the Wasp DSL, and write the rest of your logic in React, Node.js, and Prisma. We’re focused on simplifying developer experience and ensuring best practices. Everything is open source.<p>Why another full-stack framework? And why a config language&#x2F;DSL? We were still experiencing a lot of boilerplate (repetitive tasks) using other frameworks—things like duplicating data models across database&#x2F;server&#x2F;client, implementing CRUD API, setting up auth, and choosing and stitching together all parts of the stack.<p>There are two main reasons for the DSL approach - 1) short-term: simpler and cleaner DX via a declarative language that helps avoid boilerplate, and 2) longer-tem: laying foundation for the stack &amp; architecture independent system.<p>Since Wasp analyses the app’s requirements in compile time, it can decide how to generate the target code (React &amp; Node.js currently). In the future it could support other stacks such as e.g. Vue&#x2F;Svelte on the client and Python&#x2F;Go on the server, even allowing for mixing’n’matching. The same goes for the architecture (dedicated server, serverless, …).<p>Our big vision for Wasp is to become a stable, stack-agnostic language for describing (web) app requirements (like SQL for databases or Terraform for infra) that interops with the existing stack. Wasp-lang stands for “Web Application SPecification language”.<p>Besides the DSL, another valid approach would be to offer an SDK in e.g. JS or Python to build Wasp AST (like Terraform and Pulumi now both offer). We see it as another “frontend” for constructing the AST and might also introduce it in the future.<p>Under the hood, everything is compiled to a client (React) and server (Node.js&#x2F;Prisma) apps and we generate static files and a Docker image you can use for deploying to your platform of choice.<p>Wasp had an Alpha launch 1.5 years ago (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26091956" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26091956</a>). Now we are more stable and feature-full. We still expect things to change, so wouldn’t recommend using Wasp for heavy production or mission-critical systems just yet. But it has been used for hackathons, internal tools and even revenue-generating products (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;26&#x2F;erlis-amicus-usecase" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;26&#x2F;erlis-amicus-usecase</a>).<p>The current release is our biggest since we launched (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;29&#x2F;wasp-beta" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;29&#x2F;wasp-beta</a>). Besides general stability and DX improvements, it brings support for TypeScript (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;29&#x2F;typescript-feature-announcement" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;29&#x2F;typescript-feature-ann...</a>), Tailwind (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;16&#x2F;tailwind-feature-announcement" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;16&#x2F;tailwind-feature-annou...</a>), async jobs via pg-boss (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;06&#x2F;15&#x2F;jobs-feature-announcement" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;06&#x2F;15&#x2F;jobs-feature-announcem...</a>), full-stack authentication (now also with Google) (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;localhost:3000&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;15&#x2F;auth-feature-announcement" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;localhost:3000&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;11&#x2F;15&#x2F;auth-feature-announcem...</a>), and by popular demand, Wasp LSP with VS Code integration (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;12&#x2F;01&#x2F;beta-ide-improvements" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wasp-lang.dev&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;12&#x2F;01&#x2F;beta-ide-improvements</a>).<p>Our next focus will be on making Wasp even easier to use (examples, starter templates, UI helpers), and we’ll look into tighter weaving of data models with the rest of the stack and expanding the DSL with more functionalities.<p>We’re around to answer questions and look forward to hearing everything and anything you have to say!

12 comments

kinosover 2 years ago
The only thing preventing me from jumping right onto this is the fact it doesn&#x27;t seem to be an oauth2 provider, and it doesn&#x27;t seem to have the verify&#x2F;reset&#x2F;etc jobs necessary for username &amp; password.<p>Verify&#x2F;reset&#x2F;etc is always what pushes me away from doing multi-user webapps. Its a headache every time due to needing to think about e-mail, and I&#x27;d love an all-in-one oauth2 provider with signup and etc thats super lightweight and just does everything through an API.
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dom96over 2 years ago
Congrats on this new milestone! I had a lot of fun completing some Hacktoberfest tasks back in October for Wasp, it was a lovely experience.<p>What&#x27;s most interesting (to me at least, as someone that loves building and learning about new languages) is that Wasp is YC funded. Probably the first language project I have seen to be part of YC.
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desireco42over 2 years ago
Wow, wonderful of you to make this. It really causes a lot of burnout to make things over and over.<p>I will need to play with this to make more informed opinion, but based on description and info on landing page, I love what you are doing.<p>One thing that crosses my mind, clearly not applicable in this case as you are far along, but making it more interesting to write these specs would go a long way on improving how people use this. Like, I would consider some kind of markdown or at least TOML... something with indentation as opposed to braces.<p>Anyhow, anything that would save me from writing boilerplate code is more then welcome.<p>It would be cool if there is a standard way and then people start making plugins and stuff. It would have to be open source as VCs spoil the thing.
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aatd86over 2 years ago
Interesting! When did you join YC? At what stage of the development of the language were you then?
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dotneterover 2 years ago
Is it possible to use Wasp without framework as just a language, similar to something like Smithy?<p>For example I could describe my application with Wasp, write some code generator and generate my own code with it?<p>Would it make any sense to use it like this?
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0xferruccioover 2 years ago
This looks slick! Have you thought about helping people structure in a more opinionated way how business logic gets run?<p>It feels like the JS ecosystem is missing framework that helped define layers of an app much like Rails&#x2F;Django
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jstummbilligover 2 years ago
Hey, that&#x27;s cool. Are there any plans to help with bridging the gap to native or do you consider that outside the scope of what Wasp is concerned with?
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brushfootover 2 years ago
Help me understand the selling point of Wasp versus Next. The Wasp homepage says:<p>&gt; How is Wasp different from Next.js &#x2F; Nuxt.js &#x2F; Gatsby?<p>&gt; TL;DR - These are frontend-first frameworks, with some limited backend capabilities.<p>&gt; [...]<p>&gt; Although some of them now offer an option to use serverless functions, you still have to bring your own database and you&#x27;ll also need some kind of a server&#x2F;backend if you&#x27;ll need to run more complex operations.<p>That&#x27;s a big understatement; Next is fully full stack. You get API endpoints and server-side rendering out of the box.<p>You can deploy the backend as serverless functions, yes, but you can also deploy it as a plain old Node app.<p>Does Wasp offer something on the backend that Next doesn&#x27;t?<p>&gt; you still have to bring your own database<p>Confused on this one - does Wasp abstract away the database? The docs show a database connection config and mention using Prisma as the ORM. It looks similar to what I&#x27;d do in Next.
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cpursleyover 2 years ago
Any plans for other backends like Hasura or Supabase?
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abraxasover 2 years ago
If I&#x27;m writing React and Prisma code here... what exactly does Wasp solve? Can someone explain this to a relative web stuff layman?
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thih9over 2 years ago
This looks really cool, congrats on the launch! Do you have any plans to monetise it? If so, how?
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ilrwbwrkhvover 2 years ago
Do you have an uninstall script?
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