I’ve been learning NodeJS recently. As a way to do this, I developed a URL shortening REST API. Give it a long URL, and it will return a short code that can be shared instead.
Building the backend logic was super fun, fast and seamless. I learnt a lot too. However, a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to add a frontend so I could self-host this service and start using it. I thought I could make a Spanish-friendly version of TinyURL or Bitly, so it’s easier to pronounce and say out loud.
This is where things got complicated. So many decisions! Should I go for a microservice architecture, and separate the backend API from the frontend app? Should I use React, or just jQuery? Should I server-side render or let the frontend take care of that? What CSS library should I use? Maybe Bootstrap, but maybe Tailwind.
Eventually I gave up. Looking back I think it was partly because of decision fatigue, but more so because I was complicating the system more than I had to. In fact, I was thinking of everything except the core feature: given a long URL, return a short URL.
So faithful to KISS (not the band), I decided to go back to basics. I used the views feature of ExpressJS (NodeJS micro web framework), and server-side rendered everything. I went for barely any CSS, and didn’t even add frontend JavaScript.
The resulting application has two pages: the homepage, where you can shorten your URLs, and a summary page of the URL you’ve created.
I feel liberated. I was able to ship something and get an MVP out in a day. I was able to do this because I was ruthless in deciding what would make it into the basic, first release.
This got me thinking about something: functionality is more valuable than looks.
Think about high-traffic websites that people use every day because they provide something useful. Two examples that come to mind are previously mentioned TinyURL, and the old version of reddit.
These websites are UGLY.
But they provide a great amount of value to their users, so looks don’t matter too much.
I’m going to try to keep this in mind when developing applications as a hobby but also professionally. Focus on the basics. Chances are they’re enough to provide value.
Disclaimer: as a full-stack engineer with a backend skew, maybe I would have a slightly different opinion if I could develop beautiful frontends at speed ;)