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FlaskApp Tutorial

This tutorial was developed with the support of the PDX Code Guild as a seminar project within the "Advanced Portfolio" class.

The Advanced Portfolio class offers students an opportunity to design and implement projects that stretch their current abilities. Students are encouraged to solve new problems with familiar technologies and/or to solve classic problems with new technologies. They're asked to research something new, to plan and conduct experiments, and to implement a final "Portfolio" piece using that new ability. They're challenged to demonstrate their ability to learn.

As seminar leader, I felt it was important follow the course myself along with the students. I knew very little about the Python language at the beginning of this project. I knew there is a large ecosystem of Python-based development across multiple domains, but I didn't know which frameworks and libraries were most common or popular. My initial research, however, led more or less directly to Flask.

Like Django, which is taught in the Code Guild's introductory course, Flask is a common framework for full-stack web development. But Django is a framework, whereas Flask is a micro-framework. As demonstrated in the tutorial, a minimal Flask application can be launched with minimal dependencies very quickly. Dependencies are introduced only as needed, for instance when importing Flask Extensions. This is ideal for developing lean applications, and ideal for learning the various required components.