Blog Tutorials

Application Performance Monitoring AWS Lambda Functions with Sentry

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda is a usage-based computing infrastructure service that can execute Python 3 code. One of the challenges of this environment is ensuring efficient performance of your Lambda Functions. Application performance monitoring (APM) is particularly... (read more)

How to Monitor Python Functions on AWS Lambda with Sentry

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda is a usage-based compute service that can run Python 3 code. Errors can happen in any environment you are running your application in, so it is necessary to have reliable monitoring in place to have visibility... (read more)

Using Django & AssemblyAI for More Accurate Twilio Call Transcriptions

Recording phone calls with one or more participants is easy with Twilio's Programmable Voice API, but the speech-to-text accuracy can be poor, especially for transcription of words... (read more)

Higher Accuracy Twilio Voice Transcriptions with Python and Flask

Twilio's Programmable Voice API is commonly used to initiate and receive phone calls, but the transcription accuracy for recordings often leaves a lot to be desired. In this tutorial, we'll see how to connect an outbound phone... (read more)

Using Sentry to Handle Python Exceptions in Django Projects

Web applications built in Django can become sprawlingly complex over time, which is one reason why centralized error handling is important. This tutorial will guide you through adding a free, basic Sentry configuration to a new Django project.

When we're done, you will be able to view centralized error... (read more)

How to Transcribe Speech Recordings into Text with Python

When you have a recording where one or more people are talking, it's useful to have a highly accurate and automated way to extract the spoken words into text. Once you have the text, you can use it for further analysis or as an accessibility feature.

In this tutorial, we'll use a high accuracy speech-to-text web... (read more)

Tracking Daily User Data in Django with django-user-visit

It can be tedious to figure out what data to track, create data models and build middleware for your Django project if you just want to collect some basic information about clients that connect to your web application . Fortunately, the... (read more)

Quickly Use Bootstrap 4 in a Django Template with a CDN

The Django web framework makes it easy to render HTML using the Django template engine. However, the default styling on HTML pages usually need a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) framework such as... (read more)

How to Report Errors in Flask Web Apps with Sentry

Flask web applications are highly customizable by developers thanks to the framework's extension-based architecture, but that flexibility can sometimes lead to more errors when you run the application due to rough edges between the libraries.

Reporting errors is crucial to... (read more)

Reporting Exceptions in Python Scripts with Sentry

Python scripts are the glue that keep many applications and their infrastructure running, but when one of your scripts throws an exception you may not know about it immediately unless you have a central place to aggregate the errors. That's where adding Sentry can solved this distributed error logging... (read more)

Exporting pandas DataFrames into SQLite with SQLAlchemy

It is common when performing exploratory data analysis, for example when examining COVID-19 data with pandas, to load from files like a CSV, XML, or JSON into a pandas DataFrame. You may then do some work... (read more)

Learning pandas by Exploring COVID-19 Data

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control provides daily-updated worldwide COVID-19 data that is easy to download in JSON, CSV or XML formats. In this... (read more)

The Best Resources for Developers to Learn Finance

Software developers should understand the basics of finance not only to manage their own money but also to understand how businesses' software projects are funded.

Understanding how other people who work in accounting, finance and project management think about business and finance in particular can help you make better... (read more)

Basic Data Types in Python 3: Booleans

Welcome back to our ongoing series of blog posts on basic data types in Python 3! Last time, we explored the functionality of strings. Today, we dive in to another key data type - booleans. Booleans (and "boolean logic") are an important concept in... (read more)

Basic Data Types in Python 3: Strings

There is a lot to learn on your Python journey when you are new to the programming language. Once you are comfortable writing and executing code, your first stop becomes understanding how to represent data in your code. No matter the language, there are a few basic data types you'll use all the time... (read more)

Developer-led Sales for Startups

This blog post contains the slides along with a loose transcript from my talk on the promises and perils of developer-led sales as an early-stage company method to acquire customers.

I gave this talk remotely to Ubiquity.VC portfolio company startup founders and the Extended Team on June 26,... (read more)

Introduction to Ansible video course released!

Check out the just-launched video course, Introduction to Ansible on Talk Python Training. This is the perfect course for you if you want to learn to configure servers and deploy web apps... (read more)

Adding Okta Authentication to an Existing Flask Web App

It can be a lot of work to piece together a full authentication system if you have an existing Flask web application that you are coding. Okta makes it much easier to drop-in a complete user authentication system without a lot of additional effort. In this tutorial we... (read more)

Fresh Tutorials on Full Stack Python

There are a bunch of new tutorials on Full Stack Python that were written since the last time I sent out an email newsletter. These range from getting started with some popular open source projects to integrating third party APIs to... (read more)

How to Provision Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Linux Servers on DigitalOcean

Python web applications need to be deployed to a production server or service so your users have access to the application.

DigitalOcean is one such... (read more)

How to Add User Authentication to Flask Apps with Okta

User authentication is a basic feature in web applications so people can create and access their own accounts. Unfortunately, authentication is not always easy to set up and there are many ways to incorrectly implement login and logout features.

This tutorial walks through how to use the read more)

Configure Python 3, Flask and Gunicorn on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Ubuntu Linux's latest Long Term Support (LTS) operating system version is 18.04 and was released in April 2018. The 18.04 update is code named "Bionic Beaver" and it includes Python 3 by default.... (read more)

Running Bottle Apps in Docker Containers on macOS

It can be confusing to figure out how to use Docker containers in your Python and Bottle development environment workflow. This tutorial will quickly show you the exact steps to get Docker up and running on... (read more)

How to Explain Your Products to Developers

This blog post contains the slides along with a loose transcript from my talk on appropriately marketing products to software developers that I gave at Silicon Valley Bank during Ubiquity.VC's summit for founders, investors and technical advisors on May 24,... (read more)

How to Add Maps to Django Web App Projects with Mapbox

Building interactive maps into a Django web application can seem daunting if you do not know where to begin, but it is easier than you think if you use a developer tool such as Mapbox.

In this post we will build a simple Django project with a single app and add an... (read more)

Full Stack Python at PyCon US 2018

PyCon US 2018 kicked off today with the first day of tutorials. I am flying in tomorrow and will be there through the end of the weekend. If you're around, come by either the Twilio booth or the... (read more)

Monitoring Python 3.6 Functions on AWS Lambda

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda is a usage-based execution environment that can run Python 3.6 code. If you have never previously used AWS Lambda then you can read
How to Create Your First Python 3.6 AWS Lambda Function. However, this tutorial will give you... (read more)

Developing Flask Apps in Docker Containers on macOS

Adding Docker to your Python and Flask development environment can be confusing when you are just getting started with containers. Let's quickly get Docker installed and configured for developing Flask web... (read more)

ReportLab and Future Community Project Launches

Congratulations to fellow Python developer Mike Driscoll for his successful ReportLab: PDF Processing with Python Kickstarter that just concluded with over double his funding... (read more)

Monitoring Django Projects with Rollbar

One fast way to scan for exceptions and errors in your Django web application projects is to add a few lines of code to include a hosted monitoring tool.

In this tutorial we will learn to add the Rollbar monitoring service to a web app to... (read more)

5 Years of Full Stack Python

Full Stack Python began five years ago today, on December 23, 2012, with Git commit 69f5f46.

I originally built the site to help out a group of junior... (read more)

GitPython and New Git Tutorials

First Steps with GitPython is a quick tutorial that shows how to get started using the awesome GitPython library for programmatically interacting with Git repositories in your Python applications. In the spirit of the... (read more)

First Steps with GitPython

GitPython is a Python code library for programmatically reading from and writing to Git source control repositories.

Let's learn how to use GitPython by quickly installing it and reading from a local cloned Git... (read more)

DevOps, Thank You Maintainers and Contributing to Open Source

DevOps, Continuous Delivery... and You is a blog post with the slides and notes based on a class I taught at the University of Virginia this past week. The talk is relevant as a brief introduction to read more)

DevOps, Continuous Delivery... and You

This blog post contains the slides along with a loose transcript and additional resources from my technical talk on DevOps and Continuous Delivery concepts given at my alma mater, the University of Virginia, to the M.S. in Management of Information Technology program on November 2nd and... (read more)

PyDev of the Week, Django 2.0 and Twilio Voices

PyDev of the Week is a developer interview series by Mike Driscoll that asks Python programmers how they started coding, the projects they're working on and what advice they have for beginners. Mike was... (read more)

PyCon US 2018 CFP, Python Bytes and Pelican

PyCon US 2018 is coming up in Cleveland, Ohio on May 9th-17th. The call for proposals (CFP) went live in the past few days so now is the time to sharpen your keyboards and get yourself into the proposal writing zone.... (read more)

How to Monitor Python Web Applications

A quick way to check for errors and issues in your operational Python web application is to drop-in one of many awesome hosted monitoring tools.

Let's learn to quickly add Rollbar monitoring to a web app to visualize when our... (read more)

How to Provision Ubuntu 16.04 Linux Servers on Linode

Your live web application must be deployed and run somewhere other than your local development environment. That deployment location is known as a "production environment" and it is built out of one or more servers.

Let's learn... (read more)

Creating Bar Chart Visuals with Bokeh, Bottle and Python 3

The Bokeh open source Python visualization library assists developers with creating web browser visuals. You can build charts for web applications without coding any JavaScript, like you'd need to do to use libraries such as d3.js and plotly.

Bokeh can create many... (read more)

How to Add Hosted Monitoring to Flask Web Applications

How do you know whether your application is running properly with minimal errors after building and deploying it? The fastest and easiest way to monitor your operational Flask web application is to integrate one of the many available fantastic... (read more)

How to Create Your First Static Site with Pelican and Jinja2

Pelican is an incredibly well-built Python tool for creating static sites.

Full Stack Python is generated with Pelican, Jinja2 templates and Markdown. This site... (read more)

Responsive Bar Charts with Bokeh, Flask and Python 3

Bokeh is a powerful open source Python library that allows developers to generate JavaScript data visualizations for their web applications without writing any JavaScript. While learning a JavaScript-based data visualization library like d3.js can be useful, it's often far... (read more)

How to Become A Successful Self-Taught Software Developer

I received the following question via email from someone spending significant effort learning how to code in anticipation of obtaining full-time job with those skills. The question is also frequently asked by university students and coding bootcamp graduates.

This post provides my current answer on how get your first full-time... (read more)

How to Create Your First Python 3.6 AWS Lambda Function

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda provides a usage-based compute service for running Python code in response to developer-defined events. For example, if an inbound HTTP POST comes in to API Gateway or a new file is uploaded to AWS S3 then AWS Lambda can execute a... (read more)

Getting Started with AWS Lambda & Python 2.7

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lambda is a "serverless" compute service that executes arbitrary Python code in response to developer-defined events, such as inbound API calls or file uploads to AWS S3. Note that AWS Lambda has nothing to do with the lambda... (read more)

How to Choose the Right DevOps Tools for You and Your Team

This blog post contains a loose transcript along with the slides and additional resources from my technical talk that will be given at DC Continuous Delivery within the next couple of months.

Additional resources to learn more about read more)

Creating SSH Keys on macOS Sierra

Deploying Python applications typically requires SSH keys. An SSH key has both a public and a private key file. You can use the private key to authenticate when syncing remote Git repositories, connect to remote servers and automate your application's... (read more)

Creating SSH Keys on Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS

SSH keys are a necessity for Python development when you are working with Git, connecting to remote servers and automating your deployments. Let's walk through how to generate SSH key pairs, which contain both a public and a private key within a single pair, on Ubuntu... (read more)

How to Make Phone Calls in Python

Good old-fashioned phone calls remain one of the best forms of communication despite the slew of new smartphone apps that have popped up over the past several years. With just a few lines of Python code plus a web application programming interface we can make and receive phone calls... (read more)

Dialing Outbound Phone Calls with a Bottle Web App

Python web apps built with the Bottle web framework can send and receive SMS text messages. In this tutorial we will go beyond texting and learn how to dial outbound phone calls. The calls will... (read more)

Python for Entrepreneurs

Python for Entrepreneurs is a new video course by the creators of Talk Python to Me and Full Stack Python.

Update: The Kickstarter has been... (read more)

Setting Up Python 3, Django & Gunicorn on Linux Mint 17.3

Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" is December 2015 release of the polished and widely-used Linux distribution. This Mint release includes both Python 2.7 and 3.4 by default, but in this tutorial we will download and install the latest Python 3.5.1 version to run our Django application.

If you want to use a different Linux distribution such... (read more)

Configuring Python 3, Pyramid and Gunicorn on Ubuntu 16.04

Canonical's Ubuntu 16.04 Long Term Support (LTS) Linux operating system, also known as "Xenial Xerus", was released in April 2016. It is the first Ubuntu release to include Python 3 instead of Python 2 as its default Python... (read more)

Replying to SMS Text Messages with Python and Bottle

Python applications can easily send SMS by using a web API. Web apps built with the Bottle framework can also reply to incoming text messages by handling inbound HTTP POST webhooks. In this post we'll... (read more)

How to Build Your First Slack Bot with Python

Bots are a useful way to interact with chat services such as Slack. If you have never built a bot before, this post provides an easy starter tutorial for combining the Slack API with Python to create your first bot.

We will walk through... (read more)

Responding to SMS Text Messages with Python & Flask

Short Message Service (SMS) text messages are easy to send from Python applications with a web application programming interface (API). Flask applications can also receive incoming text messages and respond back to the sender with... (read more)

How to Install and Use MySQL on Ubuntu 16.04

MySQL is a common open source relational database for creating, reading, updating and deleting data in Python web applications. Let's learn how to install MySQL on Ubuntu 16.04 and then run a few SQL queries within the... (read more)

Setting up PostgreSQL with Python 3 and psycopg on Ubuntu 16.04

PostgreSQL is a powerful open source relational database frequently used to create, read, update and delete Python web application data. Psycopg2 is a PostgreSQL database driver that serves as a Python... (read more)

How to Use Redis with Python 3 and redis-py on Ubuntu 16.04

Redis is an in-memory key-value pair NoSQL data store often used for web application sessions, transient data and as a broker for task queues. redis-py is a common Python code library... (read more)

How to Send MMS Picture Messages with Python

Multimedia Message Service (MMS) picture and video messages are a common extension to the Short Message Service (SMS) system for sending text messages. Using a web application programming interface (API) with Python makes it easy to send MMS messages from a web application or script.... (read more)

Configuring Python 3, Bottle and Gunicorn for Development on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

The Ubuntu 16.04 Long Term Support (LTS) Linux operating system was released in April 2016. This latest Ubuntu release is named "Xenial Xerus" and it is the first Ubuntu release to include Python 3, instead of Python 2.x, as the default Python... (read more)

How to Send SMS Text Messages with Python

Short Message Service (SMS) text messages are ubiquitous for communication all over the world. It is easy to send SMS text messages from a Python application using a web application programming interface (API). Let's take a look at the tools we need... (read more)

How to set up Python 3, Flask and Green Unicorn on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Ubuntu's latest Long Term Support (LTS) operating system was released last year, in April 2016. The 16.04 update for Ubuntu is known as "Xenial Xerus" and it is the first Ubuntu release to include Python 3 as the default Python... (read more)

Setting up Python 3, Django and Gunicorn on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Ubuntu released the newest Long Term Support (LTS) version of its operating system in April 2016. The update brings Ubuntu to version 16.04 and its latest code name is "Xenial Xerus". 16.04 is the first Ubuntu release to include Python 3 as... (read more)

The Full Stack Python Blog

Full Stack Python began way back in December 2012 when I started writing the initial deployment, server, operating system, web server... (read more)