this was a smaller project, but it was useful because it stripped things down. the brief was basically: build a simple rest api in php, then make the frontend talk to it without hiding behind a framework.
what was in it
- php rest api
- mariadb
- vanilla javascript frontend
- plain css for the ui
that made it a good learning project. there was nowhere to hide. requests, data flow, database access, and frontend state all had to be understood more directly.
why keep it here
because it still marks an important step: understanding the split between frontend and backend well enough that later tools felt like an advantage instead of magic.