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<!DOCTYPE html>

<title>Full Stack Python</title>

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<body>

</a>

<span class="logo-title"><a href="/">Full Stack Python</a></span>

</div>

</div> <div class="row">

<h1>Introduction</h1>

<p>You're knee deep in learning the <a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a>

programming language. The syntax is starting to make sense. The first

few "<em>ahh-ha</em>!" moments are hitting you as you're learning conditional

statements, for loops and classes while playing around with the open source

libraries that make Python such an amazing language.</p>

<p>Now you want to take your initial Python knowledge and make something real.

A real web application that's available on the web which you can show off or

sell as a service to other people. That's where Full Stack Python comes in.

You've come to the right place to learn everything you need to deploy and

run a production Python web application.</p>

<p>This guide branches out on topic because your learning needs depend on what

you're currently trying to do. </p>

<h3>Let's get started. What do you need to do right now?</h3>

<h1>Web frameworks</h1>

<p>A web application framework is a code library that makes a developer's life

easier when building reliable, scalable and maintainable web applications.</p>

<h2>Why are web frameworks necessary?</h2>

<p>Web frameworks encapsulate what developers have learned over the past twenty

years while building dynamic web applications. Frameworks make it easier

to reuse code for common HTTP operations and to structure your code so that

it is maintainable.</p>

<h2>Common web framework functionality</h2>

<p>Frameworks provide functionality in their code or through extensions to

perform common operations required to run web applications. These common

operations include:</p>

<ol>

<li>URL routing</li>

<li>HTML, XML, JSON, and other output format templating</li>

<li>Database manipulation</li>

<li>Security against Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) and other attacks</li>

</ol>

<p>Not all web frameworks include code for all of the above

functionality. Frameworks fall somewhere between simply executing a

single use case and attempting to be everything to every developer with

increased complexity. Some frameworks take the "batteries-included" approach

where everything possible comes bundled with the framework while others

have a minimal code library that plays well with extensions.</p>

<p>For example, the Django web application framework includes an

Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) layer that abstracts relational database

read, write, query, and delete operations. However, Django's ORM

cannot work without significant modification on non-relational databases such as

<a href="http://www.mongodb.org/">MongoDB</a>.

Some other web frameworks such as Flask and Pyramid are easier to

use with non-relational databases by incorporating external Python libraries.

There is a spectrum between minimal functionality with easy extensibility and

including everything in the framework with tight integration.</p>

<h2>General web framework resources</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p>"<a href="http://www.jeffknupp.com/blog/2014/03/03/what-is-a-web-framework/">What is a web framework?</a>"

by <a href="https://twitter.com/jeffknupp">Jeff Knupp</a>

is an in-depth explanation of what a web framework is and their relation

to web servers.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Check out the answer to the

"<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4507506/what-is-a-web-framework-how-does-it-compare-with-lamp">What is a web framework and how does it compare to LAMP?</a>"

question on Stack Overflow.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://www.airpair.com/python/posts/django-flask-pyramid">Django vs Flask vs Pyramid: Choosing a Python Web Framework</a>

contains background information and code comparisons for similar

web applications built in these three big Python frameworks.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>This <a href="http://www.konstruktor.ee/blog/python-web-framework-roundup/">Python web framework roundup</a>

covers Django, Flask and Bottle as well as several other lesser known Python

frameworks.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>This fascinating blog post takes a look at the

<a href="http://grokcode.com/864/snakefooding-python-code-for-complexity-visualization/">code complexity of several Python web frameworks</a>

by providing visualizations based on their code bases.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/2les4x/what_frameworks_do_you_use_and_why_are_they/">What web frameworks do you use and why are they awesome?</a>

is a language agnostic Reddit discussion on web frameworks. It's interesting

to see what programmers in other languages like and dislike about their

suite of web frameworks compared to the main Python frameworks.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Web frameworks learning checklist</h2>

Choose a major Python web framework (<a href="/django.html">Django</a> or

<a href="/flask.html">Flask</a> are recommended) and stick with it. When you're just

starting it's best to learn one framework first instead of bouncing around

trying to understand every framework. </p>

Work through a detailed tutorial found within the resources links on the

framework's page.</p>

Study open source examples built with your framework of choice so you can

take parts of those projects and reuse the code in your application.</p>

Build the first simple iteration of your web application then go to

the <a href="/deployment.html">deployment</a> section to make it accessible on the

web.</p>

<h3>Which web framework do you want to learn about?</h3>

<h1>Django</h1>

<p><a href="http://www.djangoproject.com/">Django</a> is a widely used Python web

application framework with a "batteries-included" philosophy. The principle

behind batteries-included is that the common functionality for building

web applications should come with the framework instead of as separate

libraries. </p>

<p>For example,

<a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/">authentication</a>,

<a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/http/urls/">URL routing</a>, a

<a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/templates/">templating system</a>,

an <a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/">object-relational mapper</a>,

and <a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/migrations/">database schema migrations</a>

(as of version 1.7) are all included with the <a href="https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Django/">Django framework</a>.

Compare that included functionality to the Flask framework which requires a

separate library such as

<a href="https://flask-login.readthedocs.org/en/latest/">Flask-Login</a>

to perform user authentication. </p>

<p>The batteries-included and extensibility philosophies are simply two different

ways to tackle framework building. Neither philosophy is inherently better

than the other.</p>

<h2>Why is Django a good web framework choice?</h2>

<p>The Django project's stability, performance and community have grown

tremendously over the past decade since the framework's creation. Detailed

tutorials and best practices are readily available on the web and in books.

The framework continues to add significant new functionality such as

<a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/migrations/">database migrations</a>

with each release. </p>

<p>I highly recommend the Django framework as a starting place for new Python web

developers because the official documentation and tutorials are some of the

best anywhere in software development. Many cities also have Django-specific

groups such as <a href="http://www.meetup.com/django-district/">Django District</a>,

<a href="http://www.meetup.com/djangoboston/">Django Boston</a> and

<a href="http://www.meetup.com/The-San-Francisco-Django-Meetup-Group/">San Francisco Django</a>

so new developers can get help when they are stuck.</p>

<p>There's some debate on whether

<a href="http://www.jeffknupp.com/blog/2012/12/11/learning-python-via-django-considered-harmful/">learning Python by using Django is a bad idea</a>.

However, that criticism is invalid if you take the time to learn the Python

syntax and language semantics first before diving into web development.</p>

<h2>Django tutorials</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.tangowithdjango.com/book/">Tango with Django</a> is an extensive

set of free introductions to using the most popular Python web framework. Several

current developers said this book really helped them get over the initial

framework learning curve.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://twoscoopspress.com/products/two-scoops-of-django-1-6">2 Scoops of Django</a>

by Daniel Greenfeld and Audrey Roy is well worth the price of admission if

you're serious about learning how to correctly develop Django websites.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://effectivedjango.com/">Effective Django</a> is another free introduction

to the web framework.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.obeythetestinggoat.com/">Test-Driven Development with Python</a>

focuses on web development using Django and JavaScript. This book uses

the development of a website using the Django web framework as a real

world example of how to perform test-driven development (TDD). There is

also coverage of NoSQL, websockets and asynchronous responses. The book can

be read online for free or purchased in hard copy via O'Reilly.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/django">Django subreddit</a> often has links to

the latest resources for learning Django and is also a good spot to ask

questions about it.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Lincoln Loop wrote a

<a href="http://lincolnloop.com/django-best-practices/">Django Best Practices guide</a>

for the community.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Steve Losh wrote an incredibly detailed <a href="http://stevelosh.com/blog/2011/06/django-advice/">Django Advice guide</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://programming.oreilly.com/2014/04/simplifying-django.html">Lightweight Django</a>

has several nice examples for breaking Django into smaller simplier

components.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The <a href="https://github.com/rogueleaderr/definitive_guide_to_django_deployment">Definitive Guide to Django Deployment</a>

explains the architecture of the resulting set up and includes Chef scripts

to automate the deployment.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://agiliq.com/blog/2014/08/deploying-a-django-app-on-amazon-ec2-instance/">Deploying a Django app on Amazon EC2 instance</a>

is a detailed walkthrough for deploying an example Django app to Amazon

Web Services.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>This <a href="http://aliteralmind.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/jquery_django_tutorial/">step-by-step guide for Django</a>

shows how to transmit data via AJAX with JQuery.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.nickpolet.com/blog/deploying-django-on-aws/1/">Deploying Django on AWS</a>

is another walkthrough for deploying Django to AWS.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/rosarior/awesome-django">django-awesome</a> is a curated

list of Django libraries and resources.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://realpython.com/learn/start-django/">Starting a Django Project</a> answers the question, “How do I set up a Django (1.5, 1.6, or /1.7) project from scratch?”</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The <a href="http://www.revsys.com/blog/2014/nov/21/recommended-django-project-layout/">recommended Django project layout</a>

is helpful for developers new to Django to understand how to structure

the directories and files within apps for projects.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The <a href="http://irisbeta.com/article/245366784/the-django-request-response-cycle/">Django Request-Response Cycle</a>

explains what happens when you visit a webpage generated by Django.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.caktusgroup.com/blog/2014/11/10/Using-Amazon-S3-to-store-your-Django-sites-static-and-media-files/">Using Amazon S3 to Store your Django Site's Static and Media Files</a>

is a well written guide to a question commonly asked about static and

media file serving.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Django videos</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p>Kate Heddleston and I gave a talk at DjangoCon 2014 called

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrFEKghISEI">Choose Your Own Django Deployment Adventure</a>

which walked through many of the scenarios you'd face when deploying your

first Django website.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://godjango.com/">GoDjango</a> screencasts and tutorials are free short

videos for learning how to build Django applications.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://gettingstartedwithdjango.com/">Getting Started with Django</a> is a

series of video tutorials for the framework.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The videos and slides from

<a href="http://www.djangounderthehood.com/talks/">Django: Under the Hood 2014</a>

are from Django core commiters and provide insight into the ORM,

internationalization, templates and other topics.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>DjangoCon US videos from

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7tQUdRKcybbNiuhLcc3h6WzmZGVBMr3">2014</a>,

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOpenBastion/videos">2013</a>,

<a href="http://pyvideo.org/category/23/djangocon-2012">2012</a>,

<a href="http://pyvideo.org/category">earlier US and DjangoCon EU conferences</a> are

all available free of charge.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Django 1.7-specific resources</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p>Paul Hallett wrote a

<a href="https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/10/upgrading-your-django-reusable-app-to-support-django-1-7.html">detailed Django 1.7 app upgrade guide</a>

on the Twilio blog from his experience working with the django-twilio

package.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://pyvideo.org/video/2630/designing-djangos-migrations">Designing Django's Migrations</a>

covers Django 1.7's new migrations from the main programmer

of South and now Django's built-in migrations, Andrew Godwin.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Real Python's <a href="https://realpython.com/blog/python/django-migrations-a-primer/">migrations primer</a>

explores the difference between South's migrations and the built-in

Django 1.7 migrations as well as how you use them.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Andrew Pinkham's "Upgrading to Django 1.7" series is great learning

material for understanding what's changed in this major release and

how to adapt your Django project.

<a href="http://andrewsforge.com/article/upgrading-django-to-17/part-1-introduction-and-django-releases/">Part 1</a>,

<a href="http://andrewsforge.com/article/upgrading-django-to-17/part-2-migrations-in-django-16-and-17/">part 2</a> and

and

are now all available to read.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Django with Angular (Djangular) resources</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="http://blog.kevinastone.com/getting-started-with-django-rest-framework-and-angularjs.html">Getting Started with Django Rest Framework and AngularJS</a>

is a very detailed introduction to Djangular with example code. </p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://thinkster.io/brewer/angular-django-tutorial/">Building Web Applications with Django and AngularJS</a>

is a very detailed guide for using Django as an API layer and AngularJS

as the MVC front end in the browser.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>This <a href="http://blog.mourafiq.com/post/55034504632/end-to-end-web-app-with-django-rest-framework">end to end web app with Django-Rest-Framework & AngularJS part 1</a>

tutorial along with

<a href="http://blog.mourafiq.com/post/55099429431/end-to-end-web-app-with-django-rest-framework">part 2</a>,

and

creates an example blog application with Djangular. There is also a

corresponding <a href="https://github.com/mouradmourafiq/django-angular-blog">GitHub repo</a>

for the project code.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Django ORM resources</h2>

<p>The <a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/">Django ORM</a> works well

for simple and medium-complexity database operations. However, there are often

complaints that the ORM makes complex queries much more complicated than

writing straight SQL or using <a href="http://www.sqlalchemy.org/">SQLAlchemy</a>. </p>

<p>It's technically possible to drop down to SQL but it ties the queries to a

specific database implementation. The ORM is coupled closely with Django so

replacing the default ORM with SQLAlchemy is currently a hack workaround. Note

though that some of the Django core committers believe it is only a matter of

time before the default ORM is replaced with SQLAlchemy. It will be a large

effort to get that working though so it's likely to come in Django 1.9 or

later.</p>

<p>Since the majority of Django projects are tied to the default ORM, it's best to

read up on advanced use cases and tools for doing your best work within the

existing framework.</p>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.dabapps.com/blog/django-models-and-encapsulation/">Django models, encapsulation and data integrity</a>

is a detailed article by Tom Christie on encapsulating Django models for

data integrity.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://django-debug-toolbar.readthedocs.org/en/1.2/">Django Debug Toolbar</a>

is a powerful Django ORM database query inspection tool. Highly recommended

during development to ensure you're writing reasonable query code.

<a href="http://mtford.co.uk/blog/2/">Django Silk</a> is another inspection tool and

has capabilities to do more than just SQL inspection.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://reinout.vanrees.org/weblog/2014/05/06/making-faster.html">Making a specific Django app faster</a>

is a Django performance blog post with some tips on measuring performance

and optimizing based on the measured results.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://speakerdeck.com/alex/why-i-hate-the-django-orm">Why I Hate the Django ORM</a>

is Alex Gaynor's overview of the bad designs decisions, some of which he

made, while building the Django ORM.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://speakerdeck.com/craigkerstiens/going-beyond-django-orm-with-postgres">Going Beyond Django ORM with Postgres</a>

is specific to using PostgreSQL with Django.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.calazan.com/migrating-django-app-from-mysql-to-postgresql/">Migrating a Django app from MySQL to PostgreSQL</a>

is a quick look at how to move from MySQL to PostgreSQL. However, my guess

is that any Django app that's been running for awhile on one relational

database will require a lot more work to port over to another backend

even with the power of the ORM.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://blog.kevinastone.com/django-model-descriptors.html">Django Model Descriptors</a>

discusses and shows how to incorporate business logic into Django models

to reduce complexity from the views and make the code easier to reuse across

separate views.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Open source Django example projects</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/makaimc/txt2react">Txt 2 React</a> is a full Django web

app that allows audiences to text in during a presentation with feedback

or questions.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/ustream/openduty">Openduty</a> is a website status checking

and alert system similar to PagerDuty.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/myusuf3/courtside">Courtside</a> is a pick up sports web

application written and maintained by the author of PyCoder's Weekly.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>These two Django Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system web application

repositorities <a href="https://github.com/phalt/twilio-django-part-1">part 1</a> and

<a href="https://github.com/phalt/twilio-django-part-2">part 2</a> show you how to

build a really cool Django application. There's also an accompanying

with detailed explanations of each step.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/taigaio/taiga-back">Taiga</a> is a project management

tool built with Django as the backend and AngularJS as the front end.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Django project templates</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/caktus/django-project-template">Caktus Group's Django project template</a>

is Django 1.6+ ready.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/pydanny/cookiecutter-django">Cookiecutter Django</a> is a

project template from Daniel Greenfeld, for use with Audrey Roy's

<a href="https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter">Cookiecutter</a>. Heroku

deployment-ready.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/twoscoops/django-twoscoops-project">Two Scoops Django project template</a>

is also from the PyDanny and Audrey Roy. This one provides a quick scaffold

described in the Two Scoops of Django book.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Django learning checklist</h2>

<a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/install/">Install Django</a> on

your local development machine.</p>

Work through the initial

<a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/">"polls" tutorial</a>.</p>

Build a few more simple applications using the tutorial resources found

in the "Django resources" section.</p>

Start coding your own Django project with help from the

<a href="https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/">official documentation</a> and

resource links below. You'll make plenty of mistakes which is critical

on your path to learning the right way to build applications.</p>

Read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Two-Scoops-Django-Best-Practices/dp/098146730X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1391562062&sr=8-2&tag=mlinar-20">2 Scoops of Django</a>

to understand Django best practices and learn better ways of building

Django web applications.</p>

Move on to the <a href="/deployment.html">deployment section</a> to get your Django

project on the web.</p>

<h3>What do you need to learn next for your Django app?</h3>

<h1>Flask</h1>

<p><a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/">Flask</a> is a Python web framework built with a

<a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/design/">small core and easy-to-extend philosophy</a>.

<h2>Why is Flask a good web framework choice?</h2>

<p>Flask is considered more

<a href="http://blog.startifact.com/posts/older/what-is-pythonic.html">Pythonic</a>

than Django because Flask web application code is in most cases more explicit.

Flask is easy to get started with as a beginner because there is little

boilerplate code for getting a simple app up and running. </p>

<p>For example, here's a valid "hello world" web application with Flask (the

equivalent in Django would be significantly more code):</p>

<div class="codehilite"><pre><span class="n">from</span> <span class="n">flask</span> <span class="n">import</span> <span class="n">Flask</span>

<span class="n">app</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">Flask</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">__name__</span><span class="p">)</span>

<span class="err">@</span><span class="n">app</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="n">route</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="sc">'/'</span><span class="p">)</span>

<span class="n">def</span> <span class="n">hello_world</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o">:</span>

<span class="k">return</span> <span class="err">'</span><span class="n">Hello</span> <span class="n">World</span><span class="o">!</span><span class="err">'</span>

</pre></div>

<p>Flask was also written several years after Django and therefore

learned from the Python community's reactions as the framework evolved.

Jökull Sólberg wrote a great piece articulating to this effect in his

<a href="http://jokull.calepin.co/my-flask-to-django-experience.html">experience switching between Flask and Django</a>.</p>

<h2>Flask resources</h2>

<p>The 18-part Flask mega tutorial is an absolutely amazing starting

resource for using the Flask framework. Yes, there are a lot of posts in

the series. However, each post is focused on a single topic to contain

the complexity while the reader is learning the framework. The whole

series is well worth an in-depth read-through. The

<a href="https://twitter.com/miguelgrinberg">author</a> also wrote the new

<a href="http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920031116.do">O'Reilly Flask Web Development</a>

book which is an excellent learning resource.</p>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-i-hello-world">Part 1: Hello World</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-ii-templates">Part 2: Templates</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-iii-web-forms">Part 3: Web Forms</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-iv-database">Part 4: Database</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-v-user-logins">Part 5: User Logins</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-vi-profile-page-and-avatars">Part 6: Profile Page and Avatars</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-vii-unit-testing">Part 7: Unit Testing</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-viii-followers-contacts-and-friends">Part 8: Followers, Contacts, and Friends</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-ix-pagination">Part 9: Pagination</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-x-full-text-search">Part 10: Full Text Search</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-xi-email-support">Part 11: Email Support</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-xii-facelift">Part 12: Facelift</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-xiii-dates-and-times">Part 13: Dates and Times</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-xvi-debugging-testing-and-profiling">Part 16: Debugging, Testing and Profiling</a></li>

<li><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-xvii-deployment-on-linux-even-on-the-raspberry-pi">Part 17: Deployment on Linux</a></li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-xviii-deployment-on-the-heroku-cloud">Part 18: Deployment on the Heroku Cloud</a></p>

</li>

<li>

<p>If you're looking for a fun introduction to Flask and WebSockets, check out

my blog post on creating

<a href="https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/11/choose-your-own-adventure-presentations-with-reveal-js-python-and-websockets.html">Choose Your Own Adventure Presentations with Reveal.js, Python and WebSockets</a>.

That post is my favorite technical walkthrough I've written to date. There

is also a companion open source

<a href="https://github.com/makaimc/choose-your-own-adventure-presentations">GitHub repository</a>

for the app with tags for each step in the blog post.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/10/branded-mms-coupon-generation-with-python-and-twilio.html">Branded MMS Coupon Generation with Python and Twilio</a>

is a Flask tutorial I wrote for building a web application that can send

branded barcode coupons via MMS. The post goes through every step from

a blank directory until you have a working app that you can deploy to

Heroku.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://blog.john.mayonvolcanosoftware.com/building-a-blog-using-flask-and-angularjs-part-1/">Building a blog using Flask and AngularJS Part 1</a>

is the first of a multipart series on working with Flask and an AngularJS

front end.

<a href="http://blog.john.mayonvolcanosoftware.com/building-a-blog-using-flask-and-angularjs-part-2/">Part 2</a> is also available

<a href="https://github.com/basco-johnkevin/building-a-blog-using-flask-and-angularjs">along with the source code</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/extensions/">The Flask Extensions Registry</a> is a

curated list of the best packages that extend Flask. It's the first location

to look through when you're wondering how to do something that's not in the

core framework.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://exploreflask.com/">Explore Flask</a> is a public domain book that

was previously backed on Kickstarter and cost money for about a year before

being open sourced. The book explains best practices and patterns for

building Flask apps.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Randall Degges wrote a detailed walkthrough for

<a href="https://stormpath.com/blog/build-a-flask-app-in-30-minutes/">building a Flask app in 30 minutes</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://charlesleifer.com/blog/saturday-morning-hacks-building-an-analytics-app-with-flask/">Building an Analytics App with Flask</a>

is a detailed walkthrough for collecting and analyzing webpage

analytics with your own Flask app.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Nice post by Jeff Knupp on <a href="http://www.jeffknupp.com/blog/2014/01/29/productionizing-a-flask-application/">Productionizing a Flask App</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://maximebf.com/blog/2012/10/building-websites-in-python-with-flask/#.U06EZ-ZdW4J">Building Websites in Python with Flask</a>

is another walkthrough tutorial from first steps through

<a href="http://maximebf.com/blog/2012/11/getting-bigger-with-flask/">getting bigger with Flask</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The Plank & Whittle blog has two posts, one on

<a href="http://www.plankandwhittle.com/packaging-a-flask-web-app/">Packaging a Flask web app</a>

and another on

<a href="http://www.plankandwhittle.com/packaging-a-flask-app-in-a-debian-package/">Packaging a Flask app in a Debian package</a>

once you've built an app and want to deploy it.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The Tuts+ <a href="http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/an-introduction-to-pythons-flask-framework--net-28822">Flask tutorial</a>

is another great walkthrough for getting started with the framework.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://readwrite.com/2014/07/11/one-click-messaging-app">Create Your Own Obnoxiously Simple Messaging App Just Like Yo</a>

is a silly walkthrough of very basic Flask web application that uses

<a href="https://www.nitrous.io/">Nitrous.io</a> to get started and

<a href="https://www.twilio.com/">Twilio</a> for SMS.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.realpython.com/blog/python/flask-by-example-part-1-project-setup/">Flask by Example: Part 1</a>

shows the basic first steps for setting up a Flask project.

explains how to use PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy and Alembic.

describes text processing with BeautifulSoup and NLTK.

shows how to build a task queue with Flask and Redis.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Along with the above FLask by Example series, there's also a

<a href="https://github.com/realpython/discover-flask">Discover Flask</a> series of

videos. The GitHub repo contains the code and the 25+ videos are hosted

on YouTube.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-structure-large-flask-applications">How to Structure Large Flask Applications</a>

covers a subject that comes up quickly once you begin adding significant

functionality to your Flask application.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/video-streaming-with-flask">Video streaming with Flask</a>

is another fantastic tutorial by Miguel Grinberg that covers video

streaming.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>"<a href="https://medium.com/@5hreyans/the-one-weird-trick-that-cut-our-flask-page-load-time-by-70-87145335f679">One line of code cut our Flask page load times by 60%</a>

is an important note about optimizing Flask template cache size to

dramatically increase performance in some cases.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://www.twilio.com/blog/2014/03/unit-testing-your-twilio-app-using-pythons-flask-and-nose.html">Unit Testing Your Twilio App Using Python’s Flask and Nose</a>

covers integrating the Twilio API into a Flask application and how to test

that functionality with <a href="https://nose.readthedocs.org/en/latest/">nose</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The Flask documentation has some quick examples for how to deploy Flask

with

<a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/deploying/wsgi-standalone/">standalone WSGI containers</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://realpython.com/blog/python/handling-email-confirmation-in-flask/">Handling Email Confirmation in Flask</a>

is a great walkthrough for a common use case of ensuring an email address

matches with the user's login information.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Open source Flask example projects</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/miguelgrinberg/microblog">Microblog</a> is the companion

open source project that goes along with Miguel Grinberg's O'Reilly Flask

book.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/JackStouffer/Flask-Foundation">Flask Foundation</a> is a

starting point for new Flask projects. There's also a

<a href="https://jackstouffer.github.io/Flask-Foundation/">companion website</a> for

the project that explains what extensions the base project includes.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/sloria/cookiecutter-flask">Cookiecutter Flask</a> is a project

template for use with <a href="https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter">Cookiecutter</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/mjhea0/flaskr-tdd">Flaskr TDD</a> takes the official Flask

tutorial and adds test driven development and JQuery to the project. </p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Use the <a href="https://github.com/kamalgill/flask-appengine-template">Flask App Engine Template</a>

for getting set up on Google App Engine with Flask.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Here is a

<a href="http://charlesleifer.com/blog/saturday-morning-hack-a-little-note-taking-app-with-flask/">note-taking app</a>

along with the

<a href="https://gist.github.com/coleifer/632d3c9aa6b2ea519384">source code in Gists</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/BouncyNudibranch/bean-counter">Bean Counter</a> is an

open source Flask app for tracking coffee.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://flaskbb.org/">FlaskBB</a> is a Flask app for a discussion forum.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Flask framework learning checklist</h2>

<a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/installation/">Install Flask</a> on

your local development machine.</p>

Work through the 18-part Flask tutorial listed first under "Flask resources"

below.</p>

Read through <a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/extensions/">Flask Extensions Registry</a>

to find out what extensions you'll need to build your project.</p>

Start coding your Flask app based on what you learned from the 18 part

Flask tutorial plus open source example applications found below. </p>

Move on to the <a href="/deployment.html">deployment section</a> to get your initial

Flask project on the web.</p>

<h3>What do you need to learn about web frameworks next?</h3>

<h1>Bottle</h1>

<p><a href="http://bottlepy.org/docs/dev/index.html">Bottle</a> is a WSGI-compliant

<a href="https://github.com/defnull/bottle/blob/master/bottle.py">single source file</a>

web framework with no external dependencies except for the standard library

included with Python.</p>

<h2>Bottle resources</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p>The <a href="http://bottlepy.org/docs/dev/tutorial.html">official Bottle tutorial</a>

provides a thorough view of basic concepts and features for the framework.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Digital Ocean provides an extensive <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-use-the-bottle-micro-framework-to-develop-python-web-apps">introductory post on Bottle</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>This tutorial provides a walkthrough for

<a href="http://www.giantflyingsaucer.com/blog/?p=3598">getting started with Bottle</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Here's a short code snippet for

<a href="http://myadventuresincoding.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/creating-a-rest-api-in-python-using-bottle-and-mongodb/">creating a RESTful API with Bottle and MongoDB</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>This <a href="http://gotofritz.net/blog/weekly-challenge/restful-python-api-bottle/">tutorial</a>

is another Bottle walkthrough for creating a RESTful web API.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://reachtim.com/articles/BAM-Short-Stack.html">BAM! A Web Framework "Short Stack"</a>

is a walkthrough of using Bottle, Apache and MongoDB to create a web

application.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://gengo.github.io/decanter/">Decanter</a> is a library for structuring

Bottle projects.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Open source Bottle example projects</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="https://github.com/thekad/pasttle">Pattle</a> is a pastebin clone built with

Bottle.</li>

</ul>

<h2>Bottle framework learning checklist</h2>

<a href="https://github.com/defnull/bottle/raw/master/bottle.py">Download Bottle</a> or

install via pip with <code>pip install bottle</code> on your local development machine.</p>

Work through the official

<a href="http://bottlepy.org/docs/dev/tutorial.html">Bottle tutorial</a>.</p>

Start coding your Bottle app based on what you learned in the official

tutorial plus reading open source example applications found below. </p>

Move on to the <a href="/deployment.html">deployment section</a> to get your initial

Bottle application on the web.</p>

<h3>What do you need to learn next?</h3>

<h1>Other Web Frameworks</h1>

<p>Python has a significant number of web frameworks outside the usual Django,

Flask and Bottle suspects.</p>

<h2>Pyramid</h2>

<p>The <a href="http://www.pylonsproject.org/">Pyramid framework</a> stems from the Pylons

project which develops a set of open source web application frameworks.

Pyramid applications are built using a model-view-controller architecture.</p>

<h2>TurboGears2</h2>

<p><a href="http://www.turbogears.org">TurboGears2</a> born as a full stack layer on top

of Pylons is now a standalone web framework that can act both as a full stack

solution (like Django) or as a micro framework.</p>

<h2>Falcon</h2>

<p><a href="http://falconframework.org/">Falcon</a> is a minimalist web framework designed

with web application speed as a top priority.</p>

<h2>Morepath</h2>

<p><a href="http://morepath.readthedocs.org/en/latest/">Morepath</a> is a micro web

framework that routes URLs directly to model code.</p>

<ul>

<li>Morepath's creator gave a

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyDKMAWPyuY">great talk on the motivation and structure for the new framework</a>

at EuroPython 2014.</li>

</ul>

<p><a href="http://webpy.org/">web.py</a> is a Python web framework designed for simplicity

in building web applications.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.web2py.com/">Web2py</a> is a batteries-included philosophy framework

with project structure based on model-view-controller patterns.</p>

<h2>Other web framework resources</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p>This <a href="http://codecondo.com/14-minimal-web-frameworks-for-python/">roundup of 14 minimal Python frameworks</a>

contains both familiar and less known Python libraries.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>The <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/r1chardj0n3s/web-microframework-battle/">web micro-framework battle</a>

presentation goes over Bottle, Flask, and many other lesser known Python

web frameworks.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>A Python newcomer asked the Python Subreddit to

<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/28qr7c/can_anyone_explain_the_differences_between_web2py/">explain the differences between numerous Python web frameworks</a>

and received some interesting responses from other users.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Other frameworks learning checklist</h2>

Read through the web frameworks listed above and check out their project

websites. </p>

It's useful to know what other web frameworks exist besides Django and Flask.

However, when you're just starting to learn to program there are significantly

more tutorials and resources for <a href="/django.html">Django</a> and

<a href="/flask.html">Flask</a> on the web. My recommendation is to start with one of

those two frameworks then expand your knowledge from there.</p>

<h3>What do you need to learn next?</h3>

<h1>Deployment</h1>

<p>Deployment involves packaging up your web application and putting it in a

production environment that can run the app.</p>

<h2>Why is deployment necessary?</h2>

<p>Your web application must live somewhere other than your own desktop or

laptop. A production environment is the canonical version of your current

application and its associated data.</p>

<h2>Deployment topics map</h2>

<p>Python web application deployments are comprised of many pieces that need to

be individually configured. Here is a map that visually depicts how each

deployment topic relates to each other. Click the image to pull up a PDF

version.</p>

<h2>Deployment hosting options</h2>

<p>There are four options for deploying and hosting a web application:</p>

<ol>

<li>

<p><a href="/servers.html">"Bare metal" servers</a></p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="/servers.html">Virtualized servers</a></p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="/servers.html">Infrastructure-as-a-service</a></p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="/platform-as-a-service.html">Platform-as-a-service</a></p>

</li>

</ol>

<p>The first three options are similar. The deployer needs to provision one or

more servers with a Linux distribution. System packages, a web server,

WSGI server, database and the Python environment are then installed. Finally

the application can be pulled from source and installed in the environment.</p>

<p>Note that there are other ways of installing a Python web application through

system-specific package management systems. We won't cover those in this

guide as they are considered advanced deployment techniques.</p>

<h2>Deployment resources</h2>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="http://omniti.com/seeds/thoughts-on-web-application-deployment">Thoughts on web application deployment</a>

walks through stages of deployment with source control, planning,

continuous deployment and monitoring the results.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/04/practical-continuous-deployment/">Practical continuous deployment</a>

defines delivery versus deployment and walks through a continuous deployment

workflow.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>If you're using Flask this

<a href="https://realpython.com/blog/python/kickstarting-flask-on-ubuntu-setup-and-deployment/">detailed post on deploying it to Ubuntu</a>

is a great way to familiarize yourself with the deployment process.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Deployment learning checklist</h2>

If you're tight on time look at the

<a href="/platform-as-a-service.html">platform-as-a-service (PaaS)</a> options. You can

deploy a low traffic project web app for free or low cost. You won't have to

worry about setting up the operating system and web server compared to going

the traditional server route. In theory you should be able to get your

application live on the web sooner with PaaS hosting.</p>

<a href="/servers.html">Traditional server options</a> are your best bet for learning

how the entire Python web stack works. You'll often save money with a virtual

private server instead of a platform-as-a-service as you scale up.</p>

Read about servers, <a href="/operating-systems.html">operating systems</a>,

<a href="/web-servers.html">web servers</a> and <a href="/wsgi-servers.html">WSGI servers</a> to get

a broad picture of what components need to be set up to run a Python web

application.</p>

<h3>How would you like to deploy your web app?</h3>

<h1>Servers</h1>

<p>Servers are the physical infrastructure to run all the layers of software

so your web application can respond to requests from clients such as web

browsers.</p>

<h2>Why are servers necessary?</h2>

<p>Your web application must live somewhere other than your own desktop or

laptop. Servers should ideally be accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,

with no unplanned downtime. The servers that host your web application for

actual users (as opposed to test users) are known as <em>production</em> servers.

Production servers hold real data (again as opposed to test data) and must be

secure against unauthorized access.</p>

<h2>"Bare metal" servers</h2>

<p>The term <em>bare metal</em> refers to purchasing the actual hardware and hooking

it up to the Internet either through a business-class internet service

provider (ISP) or

<a href="http://webdesign.about.com/od/colocation/a/what_colocation.htm">co-locating the server</a>

with other servers. A "business-class" ISP is necessary because

most residential Internet service agreements explicitly prohibit running

web servers on their networks. You may be able to get away with low traffic

volume but if your site serves a lot of traffic it will alert an ISP's

filters.</p>

<p>The bare metal option offers the most control over the server configuration,

usually has the highest performance for the price, but also is the most

expensive upfront option and the highest ongoing maintenance. With bare

metal servers the ongoing operating cost is the electricity the server(s)

use as well as handling repairs when server components malfunction. You're

taking on manual labor working with hardware as well as the rest of the

software stack.</p>

<p>Buy actual hardware from a vendor either pre-built or as a collection of

components that you assemble yourself. You can also buy

pre-configured servers from Dell or HP. Those servers tend to be in

smaller case form factors (called "blades") but are correspondingly more

expensive than putting off-the-shelf components together yourself in a

standard computer case.</p>

<h2>Virtualized servers</h2>

<p>Virtual private servers (VPSs) are slices of hardware on top of a larger

bare metal server. Virtualization software such as

<a href="http://www.xen.org/">Xen</a> and

<a href="http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/what-is-virtualization.html">VMWare</a>

allow providers such as <a href="http://www.linode.com/">Linode</a> and

<a href="http://prgmr.com/xen/">prgmr</a> (as well as a many others) to provide

fractions of a full server that appear as their own instances. For example,

a server with an 8-core Xeon processor and 16 gigabytes of memory can be

sliced into 8 pieces with the equivalent of 1-core and 2 gigabytes of

memory.</p>

<p>The primary disadvantage of virtualized servers is that there is resource

overhead in the virtualization process. In addition, physical constraints

such as heavy I/O operations by a single virtualized instance on persistent

storage can cause performance bottlenecks for other virtualized instances on

the shared server. Choosing virtualized server hosting should be based on

your needs for urgency of service ticket requests and the frequency you

require for ongoing maintenance such as persistent storage backups.</p>

<h3>Virtualized servers resources</h3>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="http://blog.redfern.me/choosing-a-low-cost-vps/">Choosing a low cost VPS</a>

reviews the factors that you should weigh when deciding on hosting

providers.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>This post covers hosting types and host to

<a href="http://www.purefiremedia.com/choose-a-web-host/">choose a web host</a>.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Infrastructure-as-a-service</h2>

<p>Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) overlaps with virtualized servers

because the resources are often presented in the same way. The

difference between virtualized servers and IaaS is the granularity of the

billing cycle. IaaS generally encourages a finer granularity based on minutes

or hours of server usage instead of on monthly billing cycles.</p>

<p>IaaS can be used in combination with virtualized servers to provide

dynamic upscaling for heavy traffic. When traffic is low then virtualized

servers can solely be used. This combination of resources reduces cost at

the expense of greater complexity in the dynamically scaled infrastructure. </p>

<p>The most common IaaS platforms are

<a href="http://aws.amazon.com/">Amazon Web Services</a> and

<a href="http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/">Rackspace Cloud</a>.</p>

<p>The disadvantage to IaaS platforms is the lock-in if you have to write

custom code to deploy, dynamically scale, and generally understand your

infrastructure. Every platform has its quirks. For example,

Amazon's standard <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ebs/">Elastic Block Store</a> storage

infrastructure has at least an order of magnitude worse I/O throughput

than working with your local disk. Your application's database queries may

work great locally but then when you deploy the performance is inadequate.

Amazon has <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2012/07/31/announcing-provisioned-iops-for-amazon-ebs/">higher throughput EBS instances</a>

but you will pay correspondingly more for them. EBS throughput is just

one of many quirks you need to understand before committing to an

IaaS platform.</p>

<h3>Infrastructure-as-a-service resources</h3>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.screamingatmyscreen.com/2012/12/the-cloud-vs-dedicated-servers/">The cloud versus dedicated servers</a></p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/5-common-server-setups-for-your-web-application">5 common server setups for your web application</a>

is a great introduction to how hosting can be arranged.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://libcloud.apache.org/">Apache Libcloud</a> is a Python library that

provides a unified API for many cloud service providers.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://aws.amazon.com/python/">Amazon Web Services has official documentation</a> for running Python web applications.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/boto/boto">boto</a> is an extensive and well-tested

Python library for working with Amazon Web Services.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/changhiskhan/poseidon">Poseidon</a> is a Python commandline

interface for managing Digital Ocean droplets (servers).</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Rackspace also has <a href="http://docs.rackspace.com/sdks/guide/content/python.html">official documentation for Python</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

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