I started with a small prototype, a simple site using L6, and realized there were several issues with the idea. Years later, in 2019, I worked with Astro, which taught me a lot about maintainability and I found they got it right.
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Most of my work revolves around forms and SQL (Postgres). After translating designs from Figma and Marvellous, I export with Tailwind, which makes things easier. Still, I wish my UI/UX designer had listened to my struggles and made use of pre-built UI components to save time. Instead, they often executed poorly, rushed features, and changed things on a whim as though it were a toy, which was frustrating. Even so, I managed to overcome that as a sole developer and co-founder.
I did not expect to accumulate with such a large set of custom UI components, ranging from simple to complex logic, that are reused across different parts of the frontend. Managing that in Laravel’s workflow would have been a nightmare. I prefer JSX-like syntax over Blade because it is faster to work with TypeScript for both frontend and backend.
I also do not need to waste time dealing with routing, it was the same problem with Go + Echo, although Astro allows me to add flexibility with packages like micromatch for dynamic routes within middleware. Laravel, of course, has middleware too.
From my experience, I still have not found a convincing reason to adopt traditional MVC or to need that level of abstraction in Laravel.
Astro’s colocation (.astro) is optimised for developer velocity and a component-first mental model.
Despite my aim to strive for perfection, I have been out of work for years and have been affected by permanent hazy vision due to a health-related issue. My wish is to continue building with Astro.