deno (and fresh) is refreshing

By Eli Wilson at

Have you tried to set a Node Typescript project up from scratch recently?

How about one that includes front end UI code?

The setup and decisions and hoops to dive through to get that going are not as easy as you'd think. Lately I've been sick of going back and forth from front end to backend with personal projects. I've also been tired of using Next.js while seeing some exciting tools pop up around web technology. So the past two weekends I tried Deno and Fresh, the Deno web framework.


  • I am very impressed (Me, 2022, Talking about Deno)

I am very impressed. The documentation clarity is top notch. The examples are usable without being contrived or complex. The performance is insane. The community is actively working to build up great modules that provide the libraries you need. Everything seems to be trending in the right direction about this for me.

More than anything what I feel is that it makes web tech simple again. I think when I go about my day to day I see may of the codebases and I and my teammates work on grow ever more complex. There is an inevitability aspect but I can't help but wonder as time goes on how much of the tooling and emergent changes to the tooling are to blame for some portion of that growth.

Deno and Fresh make me feel like there is certainly some blame and boy will it be nice when the tools evolve to lessen the burden. I have now built the skeleton of a portfolio site and a blog out and I can't see myself going back to Node for any project again. Hopefully I don't have to.

Deno has some work it needs before it is ready for the primetime but I can't wait for the moment to arrive. I will have been following closely along and ready to champion it to all within earshot.

I am not one to believe hype. I often avoid things with hype until I have as much of an impartial bearing on a matter as I can manage. Now that this new runtime has stepped up to walking from crawling, I am ecstatic I gave it a shot. And I've just scratched the surface of some of what makes it great. Do yourself a favor and test it out with a todo list or test project. Seriously do it!