The Crystal World

A reinventing-the-wheel project, mainly for learning and consolidating my knowledge. It's a blog application written in the Crystal compiled programming language, with neither a front-end nor a back-end framework (inspired by the Frameworkless Manifesto).

And although it's prima facie an old-fashioned server-centric dynamic website and thin-client CRUD application, in terms of UX it feels more like a Next.js or Astro SSG website, thanks to the judicious use of HTMX and Hyperscript.

The main objectives here are:

Implementing the basics without a framework:
- Routing
- Authentication and sessions
- Cookie management
- Template rendering
- Database access
- CSRF and XSS prevention
- Reactive UI, with no full page loads
- Image uploading and hosting
Testing different patterns and architectures
Learning a new programming language that's as nice to read as Python or Ruby, but fast
Building a usable groundwork for small real-world projects which is enjoyable to use
On the client-side, using HTMX, Hyperscript, and vanilla JS to make a fast, SPA-like user experience