Migrating an Express.js App to a Functional Web App

Functional Web App (FWA) is an architectural pattern for building web applications and APIs. An FWA comprises cloud functions, talking to a managed database, that are deterministically deployed. However, many monolithic Node.js applications run popular web application frameworks like Express.js. This blog post will deconstruct an Express.js app into an FWA one route at a time.

Simon MacDonald
8 mins to read

Introducing Functional Web Apps

Functional Web App is an architectural pattern for building dynamic web applications and APIs without the trade-offs of load balancing or hiding dynamic functionality behind spinners.

Brian Leroux
7 mins to read

Remix + Architect: State of the Integration

We are aware of an issue with the Remix adapter and Architect. Both teams are working on a permanent fix, but for now, we have a workaround to get you back to building apps.

Taylor Beseda
2 mins to read

Architect 10 (Taniwha): plugins, TypeScript, live reloads, and much more

Introducing Architect version 10!!!, with a plugin API, TypeScript support, live reloads, automatic port selection, and many other new features

Ryan Block
5 mins to read

Begin Book Club Updates

We've lined up our next three book club meet-ups. Join us in March for The Coding Career Handbook with Shawn Wang, May for The JAMstack Book with Raymond Camden and Brian Rinaldi, and June for Modern Software Engineering with Dave Farley.

Simon MacDonald
3 mins to read

Sanitizing Input

By this point in the pandemic, we are all tired of sanitizing our hands, but that doesn’t mean we should let our guard down when sanitizing user input. Don’t rely solely on client side validation as it can easily be bypassed.

Simon MacDonald
4 mins to read

Do you really need a form library?

Filling out forms is one of the backbones of web applications, and there is a myriad of form libraries that help you manage this task but do you really need them?

Simon MacDonald
7 mins to read

ClickOps is an Anti-pattern

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is touted as an industry-wide best practice, but why is the alternative called ClickOps, and what are its pain points?

Simon MacDonald
3 mins to read

Building Functional Web Apps with MongoDB

In this tutorial, we'll use Begin to quickly develop a to-do list application. We'll use AWS Lambda as our serverless platform and MongoDB Atlas as our database provider.

Simon MacDonald
11 mins to read

The Boring Technology Checklist

Technologists love new technology—that new shiny thing. But, often, the promise of a new solution introduces new unforeseen problems creating unplanned challenges. Let's revisit what makes technology boring.

Brian Leroux
6 mins to read

The DynamoDB Book: Begin Book Club

Read the transcript from our first ever book club meeting where we discuss The DynamoDB Book with the Author, Alex DeBrie.

Simon MacDonald
55 mins to read

Using Auth0 to secure Architect application routes

Learn how to integrate Auth0 authentication with an Architect application.

Simon MacDonald
14 mins to read

Architect 9.5: welcomes ES Module support

Recently AWS Lambda released support for ES Modules and we decided so should we.

Simon MacDonald
1 mins to read

Rebuilding my personal website: Getting Started

My website is super out of date so I decided to rebuild it using Begin. In this first part we'll setup a new project with a landing page.

Simon MacDonald
10 mins to read

Tools for testing Functional Web Apps

Tests should be proportionate to our cloud functions in scope and size. Fast and small, just like the services they're testing.

Taylor Beseda
3 mins to read

Begin Book Club

We are starting a book club. We love to read at Begin! Our daily stand-up calls frequently include updates and recommendations on books we are reading, so we wanted to share that with our community.

Simon MacDonald
2 mins to read

Fat Functions are an Anti-Pattern

The debate over whether to use a single-purpose function vs. a fat lambda continues to this day, and in this post, we hope to convince you that Fat Lambda is truly an anti-pattern.

Simon MacDonald
6 mins to read

How-to: resize and transform images automatically without relying on 3rd party APIs

I got fed up with too many "A"s in my JAMstack and built an image processing plugin to eliminate one of them.

Ryan Bethel
7 mins to read

Shopify Webhooks with Begin

Receive and respond to Shopify webhooks with a free Begin.com account. Leverage the power and scale of AWS Lambda without the laborious Amazon web console.

Taylor Beseda
4 mins to read

Tale of the Tape: Highlight.js vs Shiki

One of the best things about JavaScript is the ecosystem, as there always seems to be a package that can be used to accomplish your task. However, one of the worst things about JavaScript is that there are often many packages that you can use to achieve the same task. It’s not always obvious which package is best. How do we know which one to use?

Simon MacDonald
4 mins to read