Getting Started with Python and Flask on AWS
Getting Started: Convention Over Configuration
This software development paradigm has become prevalent in many modern frameworks and tools. It can be described as streamlining and standardizing aspects of development similar to all or most projects while specifying configurations for those that deviate from the established convention. For example, most Node.js developers call their main file server.js. Let’s say that I want to write a generic deployment script for Node.js applications. It’s much easier to include a simple command like node server.js than to try to determine the developer’s intended start file. This simple agreement saves a great deal of time and configuration details. The emphasis of this paradigm is that the knowledge will hold for any team or company, and so organizations full of old tribal knowledge become a thing of the past.
Personally, I’m a huge proponent of convention over configuration. Amazon Web Services use this paradigm as well as part of their Platform as a Service offerings, but unfortunately the documentation is sparse, which is the main downfall of convention over configuration. Simply put, if no one knows about your convention or which conventions you’re opting to use, it’s ultimately useless. Soapbox aside, I’m going to cover how I got my initial Python environment setup and some conventions necessary for successful deployment.