In this episode, Dave Copeland discusses Brut, his Ruby web framework built atop Sinatra that prioritizes “simple over easy” design principles. Brut replaces traditional MVC with pages, forms, and handlers, uses Flex for HTML generation, Sequel for database access, and lightweight tools like BrutCSS and BrutJS for styling and interactivity, emphasizing direct alignment with web standards. It eliminates free-form parameter hashes by injecting structured objects, mirrors HTML for form validations, and defaults to a strict, Postgres-only setup with non-nullable fields, required foreign keys, and built-in observability through OpenTelemetry and a strict Content Security Policy. Dave and Jared also discuss modern browser-based CSRF protections, the philosophy behind Brut’s defaults, and how Dave aims to refine it toward a 1.0 release with real-world apps and clear migration paths for Rails developers, positioning Brut as a lightweight, standards-aligned alternative within the Ruby ecosystem.

Links:

Brut

Sinatra

Hanami

Sequel

Tachyons

Tailwind CSS

OpenTelemetry

PostgreSQL

MDN Web Docs

Elektron Digitakt

Ableton Live

ActiveRecord

CoffeeScript

Content Security Policy (CSP)

Rich Hickey – “Simple Made Easy” talk

Burg.rb

Dead Code Podcast Links:

Mastodon

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Jared’s Links:

Mastodon

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twitch.tv/jardonamron

Jared’s Newsletter & Website

Episode Transcript

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