I keep not writing weekend web apps because I know that my projects generally follow this trajectory:
1. Build a database
2. Build some thin PHP middleware to expose an API to that database
3. Build a slick react/angular/whatever frontend
4. Realize a bunch of things I’m missing in my API and add them, lamenting the entire time that my “thin” PHP middleware is starting to bulge at the seams.

I keep realizing that that PHP layer is not really necessary. R0ml gave a great Recurse Center talk (if someone has notes I’ll link it)  on a postgres extension which renders the middleware unnecessary.

I’m not quite ready to make that leap and throw out the middleware entirely (even though I think it’s a great idea…). So I’d like to build a language to really easily describe a PHP API. My goal is to have the PHP routing be as thin as possible and mostly handled by one fast function. In fact, I’d love to eventually have this language implemented in node, or even C/C++ for a pure-speed kind of thing. I’d also love to figure out a way to cache the parsed document so that I don’t have to parse the entire thing every time, but that’s a future optimization.

I’ve started a github repository https://github.com/ertyseidohl/lanky  with an example of how I’d like a Lanky document to look at https://github.com/ertyseidohl/lanky/blob/master/thoughts.txt.

I may end up abandoning this at some point because of time restrictions but that’s why I figured I’d get my first ideas about it online – maybe if there’s something good in there someone can steal it, or even better, point me to a project which already does this but better.

I called it “Lanky” because that was the first synonym for “thin” that didn’t have outright negative connotations or an existing PHP framework (slim, gossamer, etc).

From Boulder, CO

–Erty