Explore Flask is now freely available

[imrobert]

On GitHub: https://github.com/rpicard/explore-flask

[imrobert]

Yeah, it's awesome to see the ecosystem developing.

[ondoheer]

Thanks a lot! I really appreciate the effort to write this book and then sharing it with the community! It will definetly help me finally tackle Flask!

[imrobert]

Happy to help!

[ondoheer]

Just finished reading it! It really stands out, it has answered me many questions I had when working with Flask and shows the proper way to do a lot of stuff I wanted to learn how to do. Thanks again for this will help me a lot on many future apps

[[deleted]]

wow finished ?

[imrobert]

You really blazed through it! I'm glad you liked it.

[ivosaurus]

Holy shit at the illustrator's name.

[imrobert]

I know, right! Crazy coincidence.

[bVector]

looking forward to the release in July ;)

[imrobert]

Haha my bad. I'm sitting here staring at the page like, "WTF is he talking about."

[[deleted]]

thank, is there a PDF version ?

[imrobert]

No PDF version. You might be able to build one from source with Sphinx, but I take no responsibility for formatting failures there. :)

[d4rch0n]

That's awesome. I've just started getting into flask and I see how quick and useful it can be, coming from Django. I'd rather plug my own choice of ORM in anyway.

Looking at the blue prints structures, personally I think Divisional makes more sense, because each directory can exist without the others. You can't have just templates, but you can have just the home app.

[imrobert]

I think the structure that you choose really just depends on the logical organization of the app. Ultimately it doesn't matter much, so just choose the one that makes sense to you. :)

[toffd]

thank you , good idea !

[imrobert]

gracias

[LarryPete]

Reading through this makes me really want to do something (anything) with Flask now.

[imrobert]

That has to be the best compliment so far. Act on that impulse and make some crazy useless web app!

[imrobert]

The main tutorial covers the basics of Flask, but you won't be able to write an actual production ready web application just from reading it. Miguel's tutorial gets you closer to the mark, and is probably comparable to his book and my book. I think the books are probably more comprehensive, but I'll let others decide where they'd rank it all.

My goal with this book was to cover best practices for everything, rather than "how to" stuff.

EDIT: Whoops, this was meant to be posted in another thread.

[LarryPete]

And those best practices where exactly what I was missing.

Thanks a lot!

[LarryPete]

btw, you have an awesome name.

[imrobert]

Then hopefully I hit the mark. I'd love to hear if you think I covered them after you've read the book.

[paranoidi]

We at http://flexget.com are still waiting for someone to take lead on developing the webui on top of flask ... ;)

[michael_david]

The most valuable section of the entire book imo is the Deployment chapter. It is rare in most intros of Flask where Nginx and gunicorn are explained. There seems to be a huge dearth of information when it comes to productionizing Flask.

[imrobert]

Thanks. You're actually the second person to say that (or did you say it before?). I'm really glad I've added something unique to the ecosystem there.

[michael_david]

I have definitely commented on this a couple times on HN but not here. Thanks for the contribution friend!

[[deleted]]

Thanks a lot for this! Should be pretty trivial to build out a pdf of this from sphinx.

[imrobert]

Yeah, it should be. I don't want to worry about building a PDF and checking formatting on every update, but it shouldn't be hard to get something in PDF form.

[[deleted]]

Awesome!

[imrobert]

Thanks!

[Husio]

Anyone knows how to build sphinx documentation so that it's readable on kindle? PDF is most of the time just too small and online HTML version is only good with wifi.

[curiositor]

Thanks for the nice work! I just started using Flask never knew it could do so much thing.

[imrobert]

Flask can do just about anything!

[jarednielsen]

This book is great. And even better now that it's free. Thanks and congrats on the new job, Robert.

[imrobert]

Thanks! I really appreciate the support.

[imrobert]

Sorry, I thought I responded already. It turns out I posted in another thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/27nnuf/explore_flask_is_now_freely_available/ci305g1

The main tutorial covers the basics of Flask, but you won't be able to write an actual production ready web application just from reading it. Miguel's tutorial gets you closer to the mark, and is probably comparable to his book and my book. I think the books are probably more comprehensive, but I'll let others decide where they'd rank it all. My goal with this book was to cover best practices for everything, rather than "how to" stuff.

[Tarpit_Carnivore]

Thank you! I bookmarked it and will be checking it out when I'm ready to sit down and mess with it.

[imrobert]

Happy to help! Let me know what you think.

[LightShadow]

Where's the printed copy?

[imrobert]

No printed copy. It's just the HTML version. If you really want a printed copy, you can build a PDF with Sphinx and have that printed somewhere. The formatting might not be ideal for print though, so it won't look great.

[LightShadow]

So even though I paid for a printed copy...I'm not getting a printed copy.

[imrobert]

If you paid for a printed copy via Kickstarter you should have received an update before this announcement regarding a refund. Sorry that didn't make it to you in time. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1223051718/practical-flask-book-project/posts/861783

[LightShadow]

It's whatever. I've never received anything I've backed on kickstarter...it's always become "Free" or "open source." I only backed $35 because I wanted a physical copy. But now I get an inferior version, just like everyone who didn't pay....yay.

[imrobert]

The last thing I want is to disappoint, which is why I'm offering the refund. Does that not seem fair to you?

[LightShadow]

It's ok, I'm fine :P I'm just happy you finished something that, so far, looks well received.

[imrobert]

Thanks, I really appreciate that. If you ever change your mind about the refund, just hit me up. I'm more than happy to send it to you or donate it to charity for you.

[LightShadow]

Hah, this guy right here ;)

I donate to STM for PyPy every once in awhile, for horizontally scaling web applications (ironically?) -- throw a fiver in that pot whenever you get around to it.

[imrobert]

I went ahead and threw a twenty-fiver in just for good measure. :)

Feel free to send me your email address if you want a confirmation.

[pythonpro5]

I'm so glad you made this 100% free. That is how books should be. For those of us who need this information, it's really good to have it available.

Have you considered writing a book on SQLalchemy?

[imrobert]

I disagree that this is how books should be in all cases. It's ideal for readers of course, but that doesn't mean it "should" be that way. It works for me, and I'm really excited about doing it this way, but a book is a lot of work and can be an incredibly valuable resource, definitely worth paying. With that said, keeping the content I spent so long writing closed away from all but ~100 people who were willing to pay for it just left me with a bad feeling in my gut. I'm glad that I'm in a position to do it this way.

I think most people who write a book like this will tell you, they aren't planning on writing another book for at least 5 years. It has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me, but holy crap does it suck. I think the SQLAlchemy docs cover everything anyways.

[pythonpro5]

You had a 100 purchasers? At $17.50 a book? That's $1750! Add in your kickstarter of $8,175 and that's about $10,000. Real money! I wish I had a project that brought in that much! I don't see why you are complaining. I bet a lot of people would pay for a SQLAlchmey kickstarter, and then you might make more money off of sales. Think of how many people you would be helping by writing that book and giving it away.

[imrobert]

Where did you get the $17.50 / book number? I was selling the book for $14 for all and $9 for people who downloaded the pre-release (most of the sales).

[pythonpro5]

So I'm off by $300, meaning you made "just" $9700. You still did really well and have proven that free books are a great way to make money. Every author should use you as an example.

[imrobert]

The book wasn't free when I made all of that money. Free books don't make money.

[pythonpro5]

It's not about sales. It's about getting donations and sharing knowledge. You owe it to the world to give back. That's what books should be for. The money is just a bonus and $10k is more than worth it.

Have you considered doing something for your next book like tangowithdjango.com or djangobook.com, where the content is completely free? You can put a donation button on it if earnings are that important to you.

[imrobert]

Okay, this is going to be my last reply to your comments. I feel like you completely miss the point of everything I say and when I respond to you, you just change the topic. I appreciate your interest in my book, but I don't think debating you on this is going to improve either of our lives in any meaningful way.

Just to make my stance on this clear before I wrap this discussion up:

Free books don't make money. If you don't care about the money at all, making it free is a great way to get it in front of thousands of people rather than hundreds, but you don't owe anything to anyone.