quickserv VS quickserv-examples

> Zero external configuration, other than telling your webserver to enable CGI on your file

This is only true if you've done it before, and know what you're doing. In reality, it looks like a mess of `mod_cgi` configuration, trying different combinations of file permissions, finding the magic `cgi_bin` directory, finding the right obscure log files when there are inevitably errors, wrestling with CORS and other subtleties of HTTP headers, and other complexities that are only easy to navigate if you're already an experienced CGI user.

That being said, I love the philosophy of using CGI for scripts. Instead of using CGI itself, though, I wrote a (single-file, statically-linked) web server called "QuickServ" to bring this philosophy into the twenty-first century. It has all of the upside of CGI, but is much easier to set up and run, especially for beginners.

One of its benefits is that it automatically parses submitted HTTP forms, and converts the form fields to command line arguments. That means it's extremely easy to put existing CLIs on the web with minimal changes other than writing an HTML form front-end.

If you like CGI, I will (shamelessly) ask that you check it out!

https://github.com/jstrieb/quickserv

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29002694

This is awesome! This occupies a similar niche to—and might pair well with—my user friendly, single-binary webserver with CGI-like capabilities called QuickServ. When I released that here, one of the comments was that it would be nice to have WebSocket support. Now, I can just point people to this!

https://github.com/jstrieb/quickserv

jstrieb/quickserv: Dangerously user-friendly web server for quick prototyping and hackathons

I made this because I hate web development.

Don't get me wrong, I love that once something is on the web, anyone can effortlessly use it on their phone or computer – my most successful projects have been web apps. But I hate that you need to be knowledgeable about both the latest developments and 20 years of historical context to build anything.

QuickServ is inspired by CGI of old: requests are passed on standard input, and responses are passed on standard output. Unlike CGI, QuickServ is designed to work without the user ever touching the command line.

Using this model, QuickServ makes it easy to build web apps, regardless of experience. It delivers ease of use at the expense of speed and security, which makes it powerful for prototyping and hackathons. Check out the examples to see how effortlessly it can be used to bring bad ideas to life. Such bad ideas include (but are not limited to) web applications built in languages like bash and x86 assembly.

https://github.com/jstrieb/quickserv-examples

Since the main goal of the project is usability, that is the main aspect of the project on which I am looking for feedback. Are the examples clear? Are the error messages clear? Is it easy to set up and install? That kind of thing.

Thanks in advance for taking a look!