Why I Ditched Django for NextJS
This post is about why I stopped using the web framework Django in favor of NextJS. More broadly, it’s about why I would entirely avoid Python web frameworks, such as Flask, if you plan to serve up any HTML. While I’ve only dabbled in the Ruby community, I imagine most of my points will also apply to frameworks like Rails.
The summary is that using a language like Python or Ruby for a significant web project has increasingly gotten less reasonable over time to the point where now, in 2022, it’s getting hard to justify. By not keeping your web stack in pure Javascript, you are making your life unnecessarily difficult (as usual, we’ll include languages like Typescript as part of the Javascript ecosystem). You will almost certainly invest a bunch of time-solving problems that would be automatically solved for you if you just stuck with Javascript.
Developer circles have a sentiment that it’s best to master a few tools, know them well, and stick with them. It’s good advice to avoid constantly chasing new tools and frameworks over getting any work done. The developers I know who are best at shipping things have a few solid tools they stick with and focus on shipping products rather than updating their tech stacks. But, like many pieces of advice, you need to find a balance.
