I recently finished the educational Python web app Pythonchecker.com for Python code analysis:
Before starting the app, I wondered: what’s the fastest way to set up a Python-based web application?
My previous Django-based application was self-hosted on a bare metal machine. This was highly complex, error-prone, and tedious. I had to learn Apache web server configuration, Django and Django configurations, shell scripting, encryption, databases, and so on. While it’s worthwhile to learn those technologies, it’s also a slow process. It can take months for a senior software engineer to prototype the first version of the app.
So this configuration is NOT rapid prototyping of Python apps:
- Django app
- Virtual machine
- Git & shell scripting
- Apache web server with ModWSGI
- MySQL database server
I understand that this is a very scalable setting (it’s good enough to scale to huge applications such as Reddit).
How to Rapid Prototype Python Apps?
When searching for the holy grail of rapid prototyping, I found this configuration:
That’s it! With this configuration, I managed to write the first prototype of the Pythonchecker within a single day! I’m not an affiliate of Pythonanyhwere but I really love their service. Setting up a running Flask application is super simple:
Create an account:
Your Dashboard:
Now, you can simply create new web apps with Flask. It’s really simple and works like a charm!
Where to go from here?
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