Mastering Flask

Leverage the small but powerfully-formed Flask framework and its extensibility.

Flask is a small and powerful web development framework for Python. It is called a micro-framework as it aims to keep the core simple but extensible. Even though it’s called a micro-framework, it is no way lacking in functionality, and allows you to develop applications very quickly, primarily through the development of a small codebase.

This course will take you deep into the world of using Flask and its ecosystem of extensions to create web applications. We’ll walk through creating a simple IMDB clone from scratch. We’ll start by creating the boilerplate code and use Virtualenv to create an isolated development environment. You’ll then learn to work with the database using SQLAlchemy. After that, we’ll display our data to the end user using WTForms.

We’ll restructure and modularize our code using Blueprints. Our site will be secured using the extensions Flask-Login and Flask-Principal. After that, we’ll create a RESTful API of our app. We’ll then give admin functionality and extend our app using various flask extensions. We’ll incorporate Celery to make our tasks asynchronous. We’ll walk you through performing unit test of our app, and then test our SQLAlchemy models. We’ll also test the URLs and finally, we’ll test how much of our code isn’t being tested. All these tests will make our app secure. Finally, we’ll deploy our Flask app to various options that are available.

This course will give you an in-depth understanding of how to use Flask and its strong extensibility for more complex web applications.

About the Author

Jack Stouffer is a programmer who has several years of experience in designing web applications. He switched to Flask two years ago for all his projects. He currently works for Apollo America in Auburn Hills, Michigan and writes internal business tools and software using Python, Flask, and JavaScript. Jack is a believer and supporter of open source technology. When he released his Flask examples with the recommended best practices on GitHub, it became one of the most popular Flask repositories on the site. Jack has also worked as a reviewer for Flask Framework Cookbook, Packt.

Alexander Putilin (github.com/eleweek) is a professional programmer and has several years of experience in languages such as Python and C++. He has worked for a lot of years in Yandex, a Russian multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products. He worked in the Search Engine department on various parts of Yandex's search engine.