I’m working on a new portfolio piece to demonstrate that I can quickly learn and utilize new tech. This will provide a great way for potential employers to see how I handle wading into completely unfamiliar territory.

To do this, I’m using the Deno runtime instead of the Node.js runtime. I’ve never used any runtime other than Node for my backend or js first projects.

A benefit of Deno is that it supports typescript out of the box without any additional buildsteps. I’m a huge fan of this and it makes me much more likely to choose typescript as a tool for my personal projects.

In addition to the Deno runtime, the Deno foundation has released a brand new server-side rendering framework called Fresh. This framework is competing with the likes of Next.js and Sveltekit. It uses typescript and preact right out of the box.

I’m going to use these tools to create a basic social media website. My initial goal is to make a lightweight clone of Twitter, but the scope may change as I encounter difficulties or find better ways to implement features.

You can keep track of my progress using these repos:

Frontend Fresh server repo: click here
Backend REST api repo: click here