Ask HN: Learning flask, I need a small project to make. What can you suggest?

#1

Post by ajushi » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 12:09 PM UTC

Hi guys,

I'm a PHP/ASP.NET programmer and I was hoping on learning flask and python more. Hopefully, I can land a job someday.

My problem is I don't know what project should I do. I want something that would serve and be valuable to a lot of people.

What can you suggest me?

I'd appreciate all your comments. Thank you very much.

Re: Ask HN: Learning flask, I need a small project to make. What can you suggest?

#2

Post by read_wharf » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 12:43 PM UTC

Writing prompts.

V1: click the button, and get three words that a writer would use to kickstart a daily writing exercise.

V2: choose which parts of speech are delivered: noun, verb, etc.

V3: display a creative commons licensed photo (from flickr, e.g.) relevant for each displayed word.

V4: Take your experience developing the early versions and figure out what V4 should be.

Re: Ask HN: Learning flask, I need a small project to make. What can you suggest?

#3

Post by asselinpaul » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 1:09 PM UTC

No nonsense messaging. Create a public discussion that can be shared as an url.

Re: Ask HN: Learning flask, I need a small project to make. What can you suggest?

#4

Post by paulhauggis » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 1:37 PM UTC

Time tracking software. We all need more of these types of apps.

Re: Ask HN: Learning flask, I need a small project to make. What can you suggest?

#5

Post by bmelton » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 1:51 PM UTC

A static, Jekyll-like blog generator would get you a good grasp of language fundamentals I'd think, even though at least one already exists for Flask.

A message-board/forum/discussion type piece of software will get you a solid grasp of SQLAlchemy and company.

Something I'd LIKE to see in Flask (that I don't believe exists yet) is some sort of analytics package that dumps data into a Mongo/Redis/NoSQL store and presents things in a pretty package on the backside.

Re: Ask HN: Learning flask, I need a small project to make. What can you suggest?

#6

Post by aorshan » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 2:53 PM UTC

If you have access to a twilio account, this repository on GitHub is a really good place to start building a twilio app. I used it a few weeks ago and had a lot of fun messing around with everything twilio can do.

https://github.com/RobSpectre/Twilio-Hackpack-for-Heroku-and...

Re: Ask HN: Learning flask, I need a small project to make. What can you suggest?

#7

Post by mhd » Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 4:18 PM UTC

The forum software market seems to be pretty dominated by PHP, and a lightweight python-based solution wouldn't hurt. It's also pretty static, so you can focus on learning Flask/python and don't have to switch to client-side scripting too often (or mess with NoSQL and similar distracting technologies).

Re: Ask HN: Learning flask, I need a small project to make. What can you suggest?

#8

Post by ianox » Mon, Apr 23, 2012, 3:37 PM UTC

You could try building your own URL shortener. You could make it as simple as you like to start with, then choose to add more features as you get more familiar with Python and Flask.