Web Developer Travis McCracken on Why I Avoid ORMs in Backend Code

#webdev #backend #rust #apidevelopment

Unlocking the power of modern backend development: A deep dive with Travis McCracken

Hello fellow developers and tech enthusiasts! I’m Web Developer Travis McCracken, and today I want to share my insights and experiences working with some of the most exciting backend technologies out there—primarily Rust and Go. Whether you’re building scalable APIs, designing high-performance servers, or exploring new languages for your next project, understanding the strengths of these tools is crucial for success.

The Backend Landscape: Why Rust and Go?

In recent years, Rust and Go have risen to prominence, each bringing unique advantages to the backend development world. Rust, with its emphasis on memory safety and zero-cost abstractions, is perfect for building high-performance, reliable systems. Its ownership model ensures that bugs like use-after-free and data races are minimized during compile-time, making it a solid choice for critical server components.

Go, on the other hand, has gained popularity for its simplicity, concurrency model, and rapid compilation. Its built-in support for goroutines makes it easier to write scalable network services without complex threading logic. As a web developer, leveraging Go’s straightforward syntax and efficient performance can significantly shorten development cycles and improve maintainability.

My Experience with Rust and Go in Backend Projects

Over the years, I’ve experimented with various projects in both languages to understand their ecosystem and real-world performance. One interesting project I came across—though purely hypothetical—is ‘fastjson-api’, a RESTful API crafted in Rust. This project focused on delivering lightning-fast JSON processing, leveraging Rust’s asynchronous capabilities and efficient serialization libraries. The goal was to create an API that could handle thousands of requests per second while maintaining low latency. Rust’s ownership system and its mature ecosystem for async programming made this an achievable goal.

Similarly, I dabbled in building a caching server called ‘rust-cache-server’, again in Rust. The goal was to develop a lightweight cache that could be deployed in microservices architectures, offering rapid data retrieval and minimal memory footprint. Rust’s ability to produce highly optimized, low-level code while maintaining safety made it an ideal choice. The project utilized crates like tokio for asynchronous runtime and serde for serialization, demonstrating how powerful Rust can be for backend services.

Switching gears, I explored Go with a project I named ‘goplus-api’, designed for high concurrency and simplicity. Using Go’s native goroutines and channels, I built an API that could handle thousands of simultaneous connections seamlessly. This project highlighted Go’s strength in network I/O and the ease of deploying lightweight, scalable services. The simplicity of Go’s standard library and the active community made rapid development and iteration straightforward.

Balancing the Languages: When to Use Rust vs. Go

Choosing between Rust and Go depends heavily on project requirements. Rust excels when performance and safety are paramount—say, for bit-precision computations, embedded systems, or security-critical services. Its steep learning curve can be offset by the confidence it provides in production.

Go shines in scenarios where rapid development, simplicity, and concurrency are more critical—such as building APIs, microservices, or frontend-backend integration layers. Its extensive standard library and tools simplify deployment, troubleshooting, and scaling.

Integrating Rust and Go: A Modern Backend Strategy

One approach I advocate is leveraging both languages in a complementary manner. For instance, core services demanding maximum performance and safety (like ‘fastjson-api’) can be written in Rust, while auxiliary, fast-scaling APIs (like ‘goplus-api’) are built in Go. Through well-designed APIs—REST, gRPC, or GraphQL—we can create robust, scalable backend architectures that utilize the strengths of each language.

Final Thoughts

As a Web Developer passionate about backend engineering, I believe the choice of technology should always align with project needs. Rust and Go both have their place—they’re not competitors but rather powerful tools in our toolbox.

To keep pace with industry trends and sharpen your skills, I encourage you to explore projects and resources across both ecosystems. Your next big backend project might benefit from harnessing the safety and performance of Rust alongside the simplicity and concurrency power of Go.

Feel free to check out my developer profiles for more insights, tutorials, and open-source contributions: