docker-flask-example VS docker-rails-example

I've been maintaining my Build a SAAS App with Flask video course[0] for 8 years. It has gone from pre-1.0 to 2.3 and has been recorded twice with tons of incremental updates added over the years to keep things current.

In my opinion tutorial creators should pin their versions so that anyone taking the course or going through the tutorial will have a working version that matches the video or written material.

I'm all for keeping things up to date and do update things every few months but rolling updates don't tend to work well for tutorials because sometimes a minor version requires a code change or covering new concepts. As a tutorial consumer it's frustrating when the content doesn't match the source code unless it's nothing but a version bump.

I've held off upgrading Flask to 3.0 and Python 3.12 due to these open issues with 3rd party dependencies https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example/issues/17.

[0]: https://buildasaasappwithflask.com/

I usually end up with project specific "run" scripts which are just shell scripts so I can do things like `./run shell` to drop into the shell of a container, or `./run rails db:migrate` to run a command in a container.

Here's a few project specific examples. They all have similar run scripts:

    - https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example

There's a lot of "tool" selections in that repo.

If anyone is looking for ready to go web app examples aimed at both development and production, I maintain:

    - https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example

Personally I maintain https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example. There's also https://github.com/nickjj/build-a-saas-app-with-flask if you want more opinions.

This is what I do except I use a shell script instead of a Makefile.

A working example of this is at: https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example/blob/912388f3...

Those ./run ci:XXX commands are in: https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example/blob/912388f3...

I like it because if CI ever happens to be down I can still run that shell script locally.

> I've encountered a code written in the 12factor style of using environment variables for configuration, and in that particular case there was no validation nor documentation of the configuration options. Is this typical?

I don't know about typical, it comes down to how your team values the code they write.

You can have a .env.example file commit to version control which explains every option in as much or as little detail as you'd like. For my own personal projects, I tend to document this file like this https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example/blob/main/.en....

I did this for a while but make isn't well suited for this use case. What I end up doing is have a shell script with a bunch of functions in it. Functions automatically becomes a callable a command (with a way to make private functions if you want) with pretty much no boiler plate.

The benefit of this is it's just shell scripting so you can use shell features like $@ to pass args to another command or easily source and deal with env vars.

I've written about this process at https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/replacing-make-with-a-shell-s... and an example file is here https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example/blob/main/run.

There's: https://github.com/nickjj/docker-flask-example

I took a 13,000 line Rails 7.0 app and updated it to 7.1. I had to change 1 line of test configuration code to make everything work.

I would say that's a success for having an easy upgrade path. Now the fun part is going back to refactor some of the code to use the new features in 7.1.

If anyone is curious, I updated my Rails / Docker example app to use 7.1 too https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example. Even though Rails 7.1 comes with a Dockerfile, there's still a lot of opinions you can add such as using Docker Compose to have a fully working out of the box experience that works in development and production -- complete with Postgres, Redis, Action Cable, Sidekiq and more.

Even though Rails 7.1 comes with a Dockerfile, there's still a lot of opinions you can add such as using Docker Compose to have a fully working out of the box experience that works in development and production.

If anyone is interested in that, I updated my example Rails app https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example to use Rails 7.1 a few hours after 7.1 dropped.

If you're itching for Docker compatibility I maintain https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example.

- https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example

There's https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example if you're looking for an end to end 1 command solution that works in dev and prod. It pulls together Puma, Sidekiq, Action Cable, Postgres, Redis, esbuild and Tailwind. It's all set up and ready to use Hotwire as well.

If anyone is looking for a more complete guide I put together this a while back: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/a-guide-for-running-rails-in-...

The post also includes a ~1h hour ad-free YouTube video. It includes running Rails and also Sidekiq, Postgres, Redis, Action Cable and ties in esbuild and Tailwind too. It's all managed by Docker Compose.

The example app is open source at https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example and it's optimized for both development and production. No strings attached.

If you're interested I've created https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example with a base project using Docker Compose, Postgres, Redis, Sidekiq, Tailwind and esbuild.

I create an Up controller https://github.com/nickjj/docker-rails-example/blob/main/app/controllers/up_controller.rb and then have Uptime Robot https://uptimerobot.com/ hit it every few minutes.