Flask on Nyghtowl

How Flask, Heroku & Alembic Play Together

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 01:24:02 +0000

I just spent a couple days getting up to speed on database migrations in general, how to make it work with Flask and Postgres and how to make them work on Heroku. There is some information out there but it took a little time hunting down what I needed; thus, I’ve summarized some of the main steps to help get others up and running with Flask, Heroku and Alembic.

Why migrate? Best practice is to avoid recreating your database(s). Usually you just want to make changes to the existing database(s) and track those changes. If at any time you need to go back to a previous version, the migration docs will help you easily revert to an old version / schema and then upgrade back to the most recent depending on your needs.

Deployment is not the Devil (Flask & Heroku Tips)

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 23:20:49 +0000

On a previous post I claimed deployment is the devil because after several successful (not always easy) deployments, pushing up my Sun Finder app proved elusive. I seriously wanted to scratch my eyes out at times with all the errors and issues. Still it was a good learning experience (one that I fought against but a good one all the same), and I did finally deploy as of last week! Check it out at sunfinder.io.

Flask Mega Tutorial, Sun Finder and SheCodes

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 16:28:13 +0000

It has been a busy several weeks and I’ve written just as lengthy of a blog post as last time from all of it. After deploying my Rails app, I switched gears to refocus on Sun Finder (through an indirect route). I signed up to present the app at SheCodes Conference on August 9th (yesterday) and I wanted to spiff it up a bit.

Flask Mega Tutorial (detour)

Before going back to Sun Finder, I spent a week finally going through the Flask Mega Tutorial which I had wanted to do since March. I highly recommend it because it goes from setting up a virtual environment through full stack development to a variety of deployment options. Going through that after the Rails tutorial was valuable because it solidified common concepts around web application structure (e.g. configuration, app instance setup, db setup and integration, where to delineate between view and controller). And of course it was helpful to contrast the differences to better understand how much Rails does for you behind the scenes.

Sun Finder – Where is it now?

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 08:52:20 +0000

For those following along, I have made very little progress on my Sun Finder application since Career Day about a month ago. Since hindsight is 20/20, I probably could have seen this coming, but I was living in a blissful imaginary world that said: “There will be all this time after I graduate to do all these things”. The reality is that all that time was about to be commandeered by interviews, practice & studying for interview and a bunch of life stuff that you can never plan for.