Increase Your App Adoption

At Oak City Labs we develop using a particular stack of technologies we are not only comfortable with, but believe to be the most effective tools in solving whatever challenges come our way. Too often when a developer says “We use X framework or Y library”, it sounds like utter gibberish and has no real meaning to non-technical people. This disconnect is the inspiration for my blog series: Non Technical Overviews of Technical Things.

In this post, I will cover Flask, the web framework we use. You can think of a web framework as a set of building blocks that developers use to write a web application. It’s important to note that in this article when I say “web framework,” I’m talking about a web server framework. In other words, Flask lives on a server in the cloud rather than running on a user’s computer. Flask is an “unopinionated micro web framework” written in Python.

Let’s break that down:

Micro

Why “micro”? Because instead of being an all-in-one swiss army knife style solution, Flask is an add-as-you-go barebones solution from the start. This low barrier to entry allows developers who want to build a small program or a quick prototype to just download and get going with a few simple lines of code. According to the Flask docs, “The ‘micro’ in microframework means Flask aims to keep the core simple but extensible.”

Unopinionated

Why “unopinionated”? Again, the Flask docs explain it best, “Flask won’t make many decisions for you, such as what database to use. Those decisions that it does make … are easy to change. Everything else is up to you, so that Flask can be everything you need and nothing you don’t.”

Web Framework

A web application could be anything from a website to a mobile app to an online document editor to an email program. In programming, a framework is a tool that aims to prevent developers from having to rewrite code each time they want to accomplish a task. Thus, web frameworks fill the role of facilitator and middleman by allowing developers to quickly create web services, resources and APIs that people can interact with through user-facing programs like web browsers and mobile apps.

Okay, that’s cool and all, but what does a web framework mean to me, an average user?

A lot of tasks in web development are very repetitive. One example is as simple as a user visiting a webpage. Let’s use Google as our example. Let’s say you open up your favorite web browser, type “Google.com” and hit enter. You see something like this:

In this scenario, the web browser is in charge of:

  • Displaying what you see, from the search box to the Google logo
  • Allowing you to interact with the page

And the web framework is in charge of:

  • Providing your web browser the code for the page, the images, and any scripts that run on the page.
  • Performing any searches you enter
  • Logging you into your Google account and ensuring you stay logged in

Why do we use Flask?

As a services company, we often begin working with clients by building small prototypes to test the viability of certain ideas for them. As such, we have found that choosing tools that allow us to easily and quickly build prototypes for potential long-term projects is essential to success.

Extensibility

In the software world, prototypes are often scrapped once a project is given the green light. With Flask, we can quickly build up a prototype and just as easily build on top of it as we go. Think of Flask as a kit of legos where the main building block has nodes on every side to be built on top of. You can customize it any way you want, work with other technologies any way you want, and it doesn’t tell you that you should do anything a certain way.

Durability

While Flask is small in size, it is developed in a way that allows it to scale incredibly well. The Flask docs have an entire chapter on “becoming big.” Even Pinterest uses Flask for their API! For CurEat, we built the original prototype using Flask, and now in release, with thousands of users and about a dozen pieces of technology all working together, Flask is still working like a well-oiled machine, showing no signs of slowing down.

Additionally, the small overall size of Flask means there are less places for security vulnerabilities to occur. If there ever were to be a vulnerability in the code discovered, Flask’s large, active open source community would handle it swiftly and promptly release an update.

Here’s a Quora post showing some large web applications that use Flask.

Python

We really like Python. It is a well-documented and incredibly popular programming language being used increasingly for web server development due to its modularity and ease of use. The other popular web server programming languages are PHP, Ruby, and Java. PHP and Java show their age and are well known for not being quick prototyping languages. Sinatra is the Ruby equivalent to Flask. We find Python to be an easier programming language to work with overall, and more developers are familiar with it, so there is typically more out there in terms of 3rd party libraries and documentation.

Flexibility

This is perhaps the most important point of all. As an app development shop, we have to always be ready to adapt to rapidly changing requirements. Flask allows us to easily change direction without having to backtrack and lose valuable time. Flask also allows us to change the type of tools we use alongside it without having to change the logic itself. For instance, we could go from using a simple file for data storage during prototyping to a fully redundant PostgresSQL database in production without any change in logic. This ability to change at a moment’s notice is very helpful when we are deciding how we want to structure a project.

Recap

  • Flask is a web server framework, which is a crucial piece of any app or website that uses the internet.
  • Flask helps us manage all the different pieces that go into creating our mobile and web apps.
  • We like Flask because it is small, flexible, durable, and allows for easy prototyping.

This was the first part of a series of non-technical overviews of technical things. Stay tuned for more!