docker-flask-example VS pack

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've recently found this quote by Kelsey Hightower:

"I'm convinced the majority of people managing infrastructure just want a PaaS. The only requirement: it has to be built by them."

Source: https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower/status/85193508753294540...

In the last few weeks, I've experimented a bit with Flux (https://fluxcd.io/), Tekton (https://tekton.dev/) and Cloud Native Buildpacks (https://buildpacks.io/) on how to provide K8s powered git push deployments without using a dedicated CI/CD server.

My project is still in early alpha stage and just a proof of concept :-) My vision is to expand it into an Open Source PaaS in the future.

Do you think the above quote is true? What does an open source PaaS need to be like in order to be accepted by software developers?

Some other projects have been discontinued in the past (like Flynn or Deis) or were created before the Kubernetes era.

Is it the right direction to provide a Heroku like solution based on K8s or is it better to provide an Open Source Infrastructure as Code library with building blocks to avoid everything from scratch?

```bash (curl -sSL "https://github.com/buildpacks/pack/releases/download/v0.28.0/pack-v0.28.0-linux-arm64.tgz" | sudo tar -C /usr/local/bin/ --no-same-owner -xzv pack)

Although Dockerfiles have the benefit of migrating existing workloads to containers without having to update your toolchain, I definitely prefer the container-first workflow. Cloud Native [Buildpacks](https://buildpacks.io/) are a CNCF incubating project but were proven at Heroku. Buildpacks support common languages, but working on a Go project I've also had a great experience with [ko](https://ko.build/). Free yourself from Dockerfile!

Cloud Native Buildpacks

It's big and overwhelming and sometimes scary. But you know what? It's also fun, engaging, and very refreshing. Because I'm a DevRel, I don't have many chances to focus on something particular. Still, I'm having a lot of fun exploring different CMSs (like Statamic, Craft, or Sanity), new approaches (at last, I understood why the headless approach is so important), and diving into tech I never used before (hello Buildpacks).