Learning Flask with Corey Schafer

My Summer project is to finish an initial version of my Practice Math site for our kids. I’ve hit a bit of a snag with fractions, but the functionality for whole numbers is almost ready.

The next step is to create a web site for the project so our kids can use the app through their browsers, rather than using the command line (somehow, I don’t think a CLI interface will grab our kids).

My plan was to learn Django, and use that to create a front-end for my Python back-end. I decided to follow along with Brad Traversy to help me learn how to create a basic Django app. It was a little trickier than I expected, and I hit a snag with my database configuration.

I then thought I’d take a look at Flask, and see if that would be a little easier for me to grok. I noticed that Corey Schafer has a Flask tutorial series where you build a basic blog with Python and Flask, so I decided to work through Schafer’s tutorial videos.

This has proven to be a terrific idea. Schafer’s tutorials are detailed, and really clear. There are times when he speeds up a little but, for the most part, I can follow along pretty comfortably, and understand what he’s doing.

Even though the goal of Schafer’s series is to build a blog, it covers a range of topics that I can incorporate into Practice Math down the line. It’s really an awesome introduction to building web sites with Flask, and well worth the time.

Not only does Schafer take you through the process, step-by-step, but he also provides links to snapshots of his code at each step of the process, along with useful code snippets in his GitHub repos.

You probably need about an hour for each episode. I binged for most of today (I’m on vacation this week), and worked through about four or five videos.

If you’re interested in Corey Schafer, listen to this TalkPython interview with him:

On a related, side note, working through this tutorial series just reinforces how glad I am that I returned to Python to start learning it (again). I still have a long way to go, but it feels like I’m picking up bits of it easier than I did with JavaScript.

I’ll return to JavaScript, for sure (you can’t really ignore JavaScript these days). For now, though, I love all the things I’m learning to do with Python.

Featured image by Sharon McCutcheon