My favorite backend framework, and updates on my book

I love writing this Substack every Friday. It gives me a chance to reflect on my week, gather my learnings, and present them. I used to spread out the writing over the week and schedule the post, but now I write it all on Friday and post it right away.

My favorite backend framework

Image by Freepik

I think it’s unfair that I get to use one of the coolest frameworks for deploying full-stack applications, whereas you probably haven’t even heard about it yet.

Let me fix that.

SST is an open-source serverless framework that makes deploying full-stack applications easy. The latest version, SST Ion, has shifted from AWS CDK + CloudFormation to Pulumi + Terraform.

With SST, you can define infrastructure as code and deploy resources like serverless functions, API gateways, containers, databases, queues, pub/sub, object storage, and more. You can design a full-scale system that leverages a mix of cloud components while describing it all in TypeScript.

Infrastructure as code has always been fascinating but often unreliable. SST Ion has the potential to change this, making it one of the best ways to build and deploy full-stack applications.

Project Updates

I’m currently working on three main projects:

• Kal, the open-source, self-hosted email marketing app

• My book

• This Substack newsletter

I started this week well by wrapping up some freelance work for a client, but the rest of the week has been slow.

Kal

No work on Kal this week (yet). It’s week 4 of Buildspace S5. While I’m sure I can ship a new feature (UI for analytics), getting feedback is scary.

Last week’s launch on X fell flat. I got no engagement—I got only a single positive reply, but I’m pretty sure it’s from a bot account.

X is inconsistent as a marketing/launch channel. Posting small updates there makes sense but next week, I’ll try launching Kal on Reddit, Hacker News, and Product Hunt. Kal is at a stage where feedback is crucial, more so than adding random new features. I can’t keep delaying an actual launch.

The Book

Very tentative title:
Serverless Quick Start: The Indie Hacker’s Guide to Building Scalable Apps with SST Ion

Yes, I’m writing a book on SST Ion. My favorite backend framework, remember?

Last week I said I’d deploy a landing page for the book. Before I get to that, however, I’ll write a few long-form posts to teach it on my blog. This way, I can create and test the content for the book and gather an audience while establishing credibility on the topic.

It’s going to be a series of blog posts in which I build a Twitter clone using SST Ion, teaching serverless, databases, and system design concepts. Most of this week was me working on the blog post and the Twitter clone. Writing a good technical blog post is hard, and I don’t want to compromise on quality.

I’m taking inspiration from other technical writers that I admire. I love Amos’s writing style—engaging but no fluff. It’s tough to get a good balance like him.

I wrote the start of my post and then ended up deleting the whole thing and starting from scratch after reading through a few of Amos’s posts for inspiration.

I still plan to start collecting emails for those interested in the book, both at the end of the blog posts and on a separate landing page. Hopefully, I can wrap that up this week.

This Week’s Recommendations

How I Manage My Time Without Burning Out by Ali Abdaal

This YouTube video was recommended to me this week by a fellow indie hacker

Aravind Balla

. I was having a rough week, and feeling overwhelmed. This video quickly goes through the lessons in the book “Slow Productivity by Cal Newport” (looking forward to listening to the audiobook soon).

Posting v1: The modern API client that lives in your terminal.

v1 just released for what is now my favorite API client! As a terminal and keyboard freak, this is perfect. A full-fledged API client in the terminal is something I didn’t realize I always wanted.

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Thanks for reading this issue! Please leave a like and don’t forget to comment—I’d love to hear from you.

See you next Friday,
Tanay.