Whilst uploading the weekly podcast I am required to produce a list of links discussed on the show. This can become a little tedious, as I must visit each link to find a suitable title. Additionally, when using Markdown, you must provide lists in a specific format. I had been doing this manually for a couple of weeks, and last night I thought, “I am a developer; I should automate this.”.
With my recent dedicated introduction to the Python language, I have become very appreciative of the highly composable nature of WSGI applications. In a functional style, you are able to compose a desired application from many different components, using the middleware ideology. The benefits of this approach can be clearly seen in the contrived example depicted below, which is based on my previous Flask example.
Coming from a strong PHP background, initially, exploring the web development landscape whilst delving into Python seemed rather confusing. As Python was not originally developed for the web, a specification called PEP 333 was accepted, which standardised the required interface between web servers and Python web frameworks/applications. Despite the additional complexity, the manner in which middleware applications can be integrated, along with the server choices, offers possibilities that I find hard to locate a comparable alternative for in PHP.
FUSE for OSX is a Mac OSX port of the popular Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) software, and a successor to MacFUSE. Once installed, you have the ability to mount many different types of remote and local filesystems in user space, without the need to alter the kernel. An example filesystem that I have found to be very useful is SSHFS, which allows you to interact with files located on a remote server via the SSH protocol. Once mounted, the specified remote directory can be accessed as if it were a local volume.
I have recently set aside some time to delve into the world of Python and all its Zen. Being a web developer at heart, I, of course, had to look at the current options available to me. In this post, I will guide you through creating a single-script web application using Flask and basic access authentication. For simplicity, I assume that you have a working installation of either Python 2.7/3.3 and virtualenv.