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 developers that kept asking me similar Python web development questions via email. It seemed like the answers would be useful to more people if I put them in a publicly-accessible location. One day over lunch with a friend before I started writing I sketched out some of my vague ideas on a napkin:
The site started as a single page static website but eventually was split into topic-specific pages such as:
Most pages were on deployment and web framework topics. I have made a concerted effort to write more about data and development environment subjects as I continue to learn and grow my own software development skills. In some ways Full Stack Python's evolution represents my own growth as a programmer.
The site now has over 120,000 words and 150+ pages, split between topics pages and tutorial blog posts. I've also given a few technical talks on many of these topics, such as Full Stack Python at EuroPython 2014 and WebSockets in Python at the San Francisco Python meetup. With so much content on the site, it's time to revamp many of the original pages to ensure they are still accurate and contain solid resources that explain those subjects. It can be sad to see so many awesome blog posts I used to reference that have succumbed to link rot. Maintenance takes up an increasing amount of time spent working on the site so please submit issue tickets whenever you see a 404 or a link that's not the original correct resource.
Full Stack Python has now been read by over 2.5 million developers, but it took a long time to get to that milestone. In fact there were only a few hundred readers within the first year. Over time with daily updates I have been fortunate to grow the readership to around 125,000 developers per month.
Watching the numbers go up has been fun but the best part is receiving "thank you" emails and tweets, as well as talking to readers in person at PyCon. Keep those emails coming as they keep me motivated to continue writing! If you'll be at PyCon in April, I'll definitely be there at the Twilio booth or around the community booths where Michael Kennedy of Talk Python to Me and other Python community folks such as Dan Bader, Adrian Rosebrock of PyImageSearch, Bob Belderbos of PyBites and the Real Python guys will also be hanging out.
It's been a real pleasure working on Full Stack Python over the past five years and I'm really excited for what's coming for the site in the next five years. The change log page contains a complete list of major modifications and future directions has some insight into my thought process for creating additional content.
Got questions or comments about Full Stack Python? Send me an email or submit an issue ticket on GitHub to let me know how to improve the site as I continue to fill in the table of contents with new pages and new tutorials.
