Code Platoon Weeks Seven, Eight, and Nine – Creating Web Apps with Flask

After 6 longs weeks, we finally get to Flask, a microframework written in Python. We will use this framework to develop basic CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Destroy) apps with authentication and integrate with other web services, commonly known as APIs (Application Programming Interface).

CRUD

Most apps on the web are what developers refer to as CRUD apps. These apps are so common that there are hundreds of frameworks that exist to help speed up development. One of the most popular for the Python language is Flask. Students will start to dive deep into Flask. We’ll come back to lessons we learned in week 4 about Python’s object relational mapper Alchemy and learn to hook our Flask apps up with SQL databases. This will also be our first look at how the front-end and back-end come together to create a complete application.

Keeping Apps Secure

Once our apps are up and running, we’ll need a way to keep our users’ data safe. Security on the internet has become an enormous topic with lots of complicated ins and outs to keep track of. Thankfully, there are third party APIs that can help. Code Platoon students will learn how to use these libraries to make their Flask apps less vulnerable to attack. We’ll talk about the different kinds of attacks hackers use to get control of a site and steal data and what industry tools and best practices are commonly used to combat them.

Adding Third Party Functionality

These days, bringing in third party functionality is essential. No one writes their own mapping program – they use Google Maps API. If you want to send a text message from your app, there are services like Twillio. Need to set up a payment system? You’ll probably want to use something like Paypal or Braintree. Applications these days are breaking up into microservices: a bunch of smaller applications that do one thing well. Code Platoon students will learn how to incorporate these services into existing apps.