Over the course of this book, you will be introduced to multiple concepts that will enable you to build a complete modern web application. You will progress from a "Hello world" web page to a complete web application that uses databases, caches, asynchronous task processing, authentication, role-based access, a REST API, and internationalization. You will learn a comprehensive way of structuring your application so that it can grow effortlessly. To choose between SQL and NoSQL technologies, you will learn how to use the most common Flask extensions to help you leverage multiple technologies, from sending emails to authentication using social media accounts. Toward the end, you will learn how to write tests, build a modern continuous integration/delivery pipeline with Docker and Jenkins, deploy your application to multiple cloud services, and know how to deal with high availability and scaling. We will tackle all of these topics with a simple and practical approach.
Flask is the Python web framework that we are going to use. It has a very well-designed API, is very easy to learn, and makes no assumptions whatsoever as to what technology stack you are going to use, so it won't get in your way. Flask has a micro footprint, but leverages an extension system that contains hundreds of packages from a very active and vibrant community.
In this first chapter, you will learn how to set up your development environment and build your first Flask application. We will be covering the following topics:
- Setting up and learning how to use Git, a powerful version control system
- Learning pip, the Python management system, and how to create virtual environments with different setups
- Setting up and learning the basic facts about Docker
- Building a first simple Flask application
