Shorty is a simple URL shortener. I came up with the idea as a good way to perform some due diligence for the framework that I will use for an upcoming web app rewrite. Since there isn’t much sport in blindly rewriting an app in the same language/framework that it was originally written in, I figured that I should have a go at writing a simple app in some other languages/frameworks. That’s where Shorty comes in; the problem is well defined, there aren’t too many requirements, and the legwork of coming up with a data model and site layout is handled. Think of this like TodoMVC, only not for frontend JS.

The first framework tried was Tornado due to my extensive trials with it when writing skillbook. I considered skipping it entirely, but didn’t since I figured that it would be beneficial to start easy and work out the issues with the database and layout in a framework that I was well versed in.

You can find the code for Shorty on GitHub.