If you want to DIY something, I have a bash script that builds OpenResty with NAXSI from source. Most of the web apps I write anymore are actually in Lua, for OpenResty, maybe with an API written in something else. But I also help other members of my team deploy their Node and Python apps and stuff, and I always just park those behind OpenResty with NAXSI, just doing a standard nginx reverse proxy.
Every computer I own is an autobot. My primary machine is always Optimus Prime, has been since 2008. Other machines get other names generally slightly inspired by their role / nature. Bumblebee and CliffJumper are miniPCs of various persuasions, Preceptor is my “mess around with AI” box, my big server that handles most of my data and network services is Wheeljack, my Macbook is Mirage, my backup server is Powerglide, my TV (which is an old Dell all in One running Linux Mint) is UltraMagnus.
Back in the day I had like five Reddit accounts. I still log into one of them sometimes (no it’s not my main one, that one turned into obscene invitations for u/spez to bugger himself with a hot poker, I’m not exaggerating).
You see Charles, they will always hate and fear amphibians. There can never be peace and understanding between us and them.
*Croak
Not voting for them has never once, in the history of history, gotten them to change. It actually causes them to pull further right.
As long as I continue to sometimes waste hours of my life on irresolvable dependency hell, after exactly following the “deploy my project” instructions, trying with multiple environment managers (venv, conda, poetry), watching my system environment somehow get broken even though I’m using some kind of virtual environment (happened to me just last week), I will continue to AGGRESSIVELY have the opinion that
Thus the Facebook of programming languages.
And oh yeah, “so use docker.” Dude, if your ecosystem only works reliably in carefully controlled containers, in 2025, the problem is your shitty shitty, stupid, chronically broken ecosystem, not me for being frustrated with it.
This problem IS AND HAS BEEN so bad that every few years someone does a WHOLE NOTHER BIG PROJECT to try to solve it, so now we have multiple buggy ass environment resolvers, non of which work well enough to be considered anything other than an embarrassment to the community, when compared with say the modern Lua or Rust ecosystems.
Like this stack ALL YOU WANT, I not only don’t get it, I’m (I believe justifiably) grumpy and frustrated because when I want to use your shit, now I have to use this crummy stack. Thanks for that Python advocates. I’m so grateful to you for that. Thanks so very very much.
THUS the Facebook of programming languages. Facebook is “fun” and “easy to get started with” too. Lua is JUST AS EASY to get started with, but its’ ecosystem doesn’t do this to me. Explain that, if you can.
I know you’re human beings like me and you deserve compassion, but damn it, I have wasted SO MUCH TIME trying to get your broken, buggy ass shit to work, and I’m VERY frustrated about it. You’re not gonna talk me down.
I don’t care about how easy or fun the syntax is. The syntax is irrelevant to me. I care about how borked up and bloated the ecosystem is, and how so many “here’s how you deploy my project” instructions fail horribly to work due to unexplainable dependency conflicts, and how fragile and unstable and specific and unforgiving the complex web of virtual environments (and their multiple different managers) are just to run some 5,000 line script someone wrote that requires shittylib 2.1.3 and pieceofgarbagemodule 0.5.1, but shittylib 2.1.3 requires abandonedproject 4.1.1 and pieceofgarbagemodule 0.5.1 requires abandonedproject 3.0.99 and “pip failed to resolve dependencies after 15 minutes of installing shit because we didn’t write it to do that, fuck you, hahaha, modify your requirements.txt to use a different version of abandonedproject lol!” That shit is unacceptable in the modern world, given the alternatives available.
I will die on this hill, regardless of hate and downvotes.
Ah Python, the Facebook of programming languages.
One of the highlights of all D&D games I’ve ever played was
Finally levelling to the point I could cast 7th level spells, while the party was trapped on some awful demiplane where strange creatures were coming out of cracks in reality and just beating us to shreds.
Learning Mordenkanen’s Magnificent Mansion.
Casting it so the party had some where to go rest and escape.
Taking the party on a tour of the mansion and getting super prissy about it. “Here’s the kitchen. Here’s the living room, no feet on the couch! The guest rooms all have private bathrooms, everybody better wash up, and send your dirty clothes to be laundered before you touch ANY furniture!”
That game continued to epic level and that character (who I had played starting from first level over the course of YEARS) created this spell using the 3.5 Epic Spell development rules. It is the best spell ever.
There’s a learning curve, but if you’re familiar with WAF’s it’s not hard.