DEV Community: eduwyre

Spring Vs Spring Boot: Brief Overview and Comparison

eduwyre — Sat, 07 Aug 2021 15:54:07 +0000

Spring is a the core java framework used heavily in web and JEE applications development in general. Before we continue, it is worth noting that Spring is the core framework whereas spring boot is the extension module built on top of Spring core. So, while both bring in many things in common, you will find subtle differences between the two.

Spring vs Spring Boot: Brief Introduction

At a very basic level, Spring is a low-level framework where you need to do a lot of manual work, but Spring Boot brings in many predefined ways to automate programming tasks.

Having said that, also understand that Spring can do a lot more, but Spring Boot is targeted specifically towards web development and microservices

What is Spring?

Spring provides overall infrastructural backing to develop java enterprise applications. Two powerful features of spring include dependency injection (DI) and inversion of Control. It also provides a very solid configurational mechanism to speed develop Java EE applications.

Over the last few years, Spring has turned into a very wide ecosystem of modules and that are used in various areas of application development.

Some of the popular modules in the ecosystem include Spring ORM, Spring MVC Test, Spring Cloud, Spring Batch, Spring Security, and a lot more.

When working on an enterprise Java application, you can pick and choose one or more of Spring modules and get your application up and running.

Some of the key tasks you can achieve with spring are as below –

Build Serverless cloud applications
Create batches to automate repetitive tasks
Build non-blocking asynchronous applications
Server-side development with battletested security
Event driven architecture implementation
Scalable microservices development
And a lot more.

Spring continuously keeps on adding more projects in the overall ecosystem. Some of the recent additions include Spring Shell that provides readymade jars to put together a fully functional CLI application. Another example includes Spring Flow which is based on JavaScript and allows use of HTML5 visual builder for simple pipelines and graphs.

Spring framework is used heavily in streaming applications like Streaming TV, Streaming Audio, shopping apps and a lot more. Many top organizations like Google, Microsoft and Alibaba are regular contributors and supports for the advancement of spring framework.

For absolute beginners, know that You can learn Spring as well as Spring Boot framework by following common set of Spring tutorials and Courses as most tutorials provide intro to Spring and then carry on to explain Spring Boot.

What is Spring Boot?

Like I stated above, Spring Boot is high level framework built on top of spring and requires minimal configuration to build web applications. One of the key drawbacks of core Spring is the need for lot of manual configuration and that is what resulted in creation of Spring Boot.

Based on the choices you make for your web application development, spring boot generates the configuration for you automatically, it saves a lot of time.

Key features of Spring Boot are as below –

Create fully functional independent spring applications
Auto includes war files for Tomcat, Jetty and even Undertow. You just decide what you want, spring Boot takes care of the WAR files and deployment
Brings pre-defined configurations for started web application.
Auto configuration of modules from Spring ecosystem as well as many third-party libraries
Out of the box metrics, health checks and other reports.
No manual XML configuration required.

Spring Boot does take away some flexibility with opinionated configuration that it offers, but that is what saves all the time. If you are not in for that, you can go for core/raw Spring and do it all by yourself.

Dependency Management: Spring vs Spring Boot

Let us look at very basic example of how developers can manage dependencies in both Spring and Spring Boot Frameworks -

Minimum dependency required in Spring, for a web application:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
    <version>5.3.5</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
    <version>5.3.5</version>
</dependency>

Minimum dependency required in Spring Boot for web application:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    <version>2.4.4</version>
</dependency>

Notice above the difference in number of lines, and the difference becomes exponential when application complexity increases along with the dependencies. Spring Boot makes it simple with the help of many starter packs. Some of the most popular are as listed below -

spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf - Includes the template engine
spring-boot-starter-web - Creates web app with embedded container
spring-boot-starter-aop - AOP included for aspect oriented programming in Spring Boot applications
spring-boot-starter-artemis - JMS messaging with Apache Artemis
spring-boot-starter-web-services - Web Services starter pack
spring-boot-starter-mail - Email sending features in JEE application
spring-boot-starter-data-jpa - Including data JPA with Hibernate

If you are not using Spring Boot then every single dependency from above list in core Spring will make you write many lines of configuration.

Spring vs Spring Boot: Dependency configuration for Security

Check below example to configure Security in Spring application, without Spring Boot -

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity
public class CustomWebSecurityConfigurerAdapter extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {

    @Autowired
    public void configureGlobal(AuthenticationManagerBuilder auth) throws Exception {
        auth.inMemoryAuthentication()
          .withUser("user1")
            .password(passwordEncoder()
            .encode("user1Pass"))
          .authorities("ROLE_USER");
    }

    @Override
    protected void configure(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
        http.authorizeRequests()
          .anyRequest().authenticated()
          .and()
          .httpBasic();
    }

    @Bean
    public PasswordEncoder passwordEncoder() {
        return new BCryptPasswordEncoder();
    }
}

With Spring Boot, you only need to include the security starter pack - spring-boot-starter-security.

There is even a spring initializer that helps you make application choices on the user interface and generates the application dependencies automatically.
Check out below image –

Conclusion

Spring was launched to do a lot of things in Java, but developers didn’t like it too much due to the manual configuration overheads. However, spring Boot brought back the developers’ interest soon after and helped grow spring ecosystem to the heights it enjoys now.

This brings us to the end of this Spring vs Spring Boot comparison. Do let us know your views working with these frameworks, via comments.

Flask Framework Tutorials and Courses

eduwyre — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 15:32:52 +0000

Flask is a microframework written in Python and used widely for web development. You can find below the best Flask tutorials, courses, and certifications available online.

Given below you will find the best 10 Flask Tutorials and Courses, we have made good effort to list down only the best of the best here. This includes paid courses from Udemy, Pluralsight as well as free tutorials available on Youtube and other online resources.

Let us look at the best 10 out there, full and continuously updated list can be found here: Running List of Flask Tutorials and Courses

REST APIs with Flask and Python

Python Flask course starts off with Python refresher classes that include setup of development environment and basics of programming. This course will teach you to create production-grade REST APIs using Python, Flask framework, and popular extensions like Flask SQLALchemy, Flask-RESTful, and Flask-JWT. You will also get to work with other related technologies including nginx, Heroku, and Git that are used for code management and deployment of REST APIs. Visit

The Build a SAAS App with Flask Course

Flask is easy to work with, minimalist, and a lightning-fast Python framework used for web applications development. In this course, Nick teaches you exactly how to get the best out of Flask and Python instead of just going through the syntax and usage. You will learn to work with a Stripe payment gateway to accept payments and Docker to containerize the web applications. You will learn Flask use to create large-scale web applications like Pinterest APIs that serve billions of requests per day via Flask.
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The Flask Mega-Tutorial Part I: Hello, World!

This is a highly rated tutorial created by the very loved Miguel Grinberg. This tutorial is comparatively small and is covered in just over 5 hours of video. In this Flask tutorial, you will learn to create a fully functional social blogging platform using the Python flask framework. The code files used in the tutorial are available at GitHub for download, so you can get a fully functional Flask project to play around with. We can easily tag it as the best Flask tutorial for beginners, and that too free of cost.Visit

Flask Learning Path on Pluralsight

Building Web Applications with Flask learning path on Pluralsight consists of six individual courses to help you master web applications development. You will learn from scratch by doing the initial setup of the environment, working with forms, sessions, authentication, authorization, routing as well as deployment. You will also learn best practices to structure large-scale applications and tips on how to manage the evolving applications.

The courses in this learning path are all very recently updated, so you get to learn the latest and greatest in the Flask ecosystem.
Visit

Python and Flask Bootcamp: Create Websites using Flask!

Jose Portilla is a respected instructor and has created many bestselling courses on Python and Flask. In this course, Jose teaches you to create websites from scratch to production deployment using Python, Flask Framework, and other related technologies. You will learn Flask by creating basic landing pages, WTForms to accept user inputs, learn to use SQLAlchem, using the blueprint for large applications, OAuth, and finally integrate your REST APIs with Stripe to accept payments.
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Learn the Flask Python Framework by Building an Ecommerce Platform

This is a comprehensive Flask video course available for free on FreeCodeCamp. In this course, you will learn to create a fully functional eCommerce web application by using Python, and Flask framework. You will learn flask development lifecycle end to end starting from styling and templates, synching data with templates, templates inheritance, working with models & databases, structuring project for scale, working with forms in Flask, form validations, user authentication, purchasing of items from the catalog, and listing items for selling.

Given that it is a fully functional eCommerce platform built from the ground up, you will learn professional-grade coding and best practices of both Flask as well as web application development in general. While there are other good courses on Udemy, but this one is free and does not lack any detail, so worth a try.
Learn Flask Python Framework by Building eCommerce Platform

Flask Web Development: Developing Web Applications with Python

Building web applications with Flask is an absolute Breeze. In this book, author Miguel helps you take full control of your web application development in the Python Flask framework. You build the web applications as well as learn advanced techniques including data migration, APIs development, and deployment. The book is divided into three main sections –

Introduction to Flask – Understand the framework capabilities and features.
Flasky Application – build an open-source blogging application that uses CRUD with templates, pagination, rich text, and more.
Finishing Touches – Fine-tune and improve the application by applying unit testing strategies, performance optimization, and finally the deployment.
If books are your way to learn anything, this is the best Flask book you can get out there in the market. We recommend this to all beginners who intend to learn Flask at their own pace.
Visit

Corey Schafer’s free Flask Tutorial Series on YouTube

This free Flask tutorial series from Corey Schafer on YouTube is quite good and includes around 10 hours of video content divided into 15 parts. Corey starts from the very basics of Flask and provides instructions to install flask, other necessary packages and even putting together a Hello world application. Post the basics, Corey gets into building a full-featured web app that interacts with the database, including user authentication, CRUD operations, deployment, and securing the application using SSL/TLS certificates.

Django vs Flask has been a debate for some, so for anyone interested in that Django also, Corey provides a tutorial to build the same application in Django as well.
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Python REST APIs with Flask, Docker, MongoDB, and AWS DevOps

Flask is one of the best microframeworks available out there in the market to design and implement scalable RESTful APIs with very little effort. In this course, you learn to design RESTful APIs, work with NoSQL databases,s and working Docker to dockerize your apps. You will also use TensorFlow machine learning API to build image recognition capabilities in your application. API deployment and maintenance can be a pain when the scale and size of the project increases, you will learn about that also in this course with DevOps and deployment workflow on Amazon EC2.
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Flask: Develop Web Applications in Python

This can be easily tagged as the best Flask Course in text format. You can read online or download a pdf copy to learn at your own pace. The course starts off with a brief introduction of Flask and then moves on to details of how companies like Netflix, Lyft, Uber, Reddit, and Airbnb are using Flask in their applications that serve billions of API calls. You get a live coding environment in the browser itself, so you do not have to set up anything on your machine, the course also offers built-in assessments to evaluate the skill level.

All in all, this course brings in 69 lessons, 10 Quizzes, 46 illustrations, and 68 playground exercises
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Check out Free Flask Tutorials for continuously updated list on Flask tutorials and courses.

Flask ecosystem is growing and it is becoming a framework of choice over the last few years. Flask has even started to give tough competition to the likes of Django, though there are major differences but you can choose either to kick start your web development project.

Subscribe to get a detailed article on Flask and Django frameworks. Thank you for reading.

7 Best Online Courses to Learn Django Framework

eduwyre — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 16:08:46 +0000

If you are looking for good tutorials and courses to master Django, then you are at the right place. In this article we have compiled together 7 best courses from around the web to help you master web applications development with Django.

Developers use Django framework for rapid applications development using its ready to use components. The very reason of Django’s popularity is out of the box features to put together complex web applications within a matter of days.

Learning Django is not difficult either, it is the web framework built on top of Python programming language, which is one of the easiest one. However, knowledge of Python is pre-requisite before you dive deep into Django framework to create websites.

Django not only provides servers side and frontend but also provides ready to use components for admin interface creation which can be used to manage CRUD operations with ease.
SPring

Let us look at 7 of the best Django Courses and Tutorials

Python Django – The Practical Guide

This is among the latest and most updated Django framework courses on Udemy and is best suited for Django beginners. In this course, you will learn to build a fully functional blog website from scratch using Python Django framework, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. From a content perspective, this course covers below topics –
• Installing Django, understanding project structure, URLs, requests, and responses.
• Templates, static files, image, and files handling, creating models.
• Data modeling including one to many and many to many relationships.
• Interacting with database using Django models
• Working with and creating Django admin screens for your application
• User inputs, forms, and data validations using Django out-of-the-box forms handling.
• Session management and deploying the application for production use.
• And everything else you need to make a production-ready website.
We recommend this course to beginners who have some knowledge of Python, no Django experience required.

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Django 3 – Full Stack Websites with Python Web Development

This is another good beginner Django course on Udemy and teaches you the Django framework from the ground up. The course covers full-stack development by building 3 websites using Django, CSS, HTML, Bootstrap 4, JavaScript, and other web technologies. You will build a personal portfolio website, a to-do list manager, and a random password generator. You will also learn to deploy the website using an online tool called Python Anywhere. Nick Walter covers topics like forms validation, models, working with databases, dynamic URLs, authentication, working with files, templates, etc. in an easy and detailed manner. We recommend this course to beginners who are preparing to get a junior web developer job in the Python ecosystem.

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Build a Backend REST API with Python & Django

This course is for advanced-level developers who want to go a step further to build and deploy REST API with Django in Python. The instructor covers many advanced topics like local Docker container setup, developing using Test Driven Development, working with Travis-CI (continuous integration) for code management, best practices like PEP-8, and a lot more. In the end, you will learn to create a REST API for uploading and viewing images, to say the least. We recommend this course to experienced Python developers who already have some Django knowledge to get the maximum benefit.

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Python Django Web Framework – Full Free Django Tutorial for Beginners

This free Django tutorial from freeCodeCamp is a great option for beginners to learn to start building websites with the Python Django framework. The tutorial provides almost around 4h of video content at a faced pace and covers almost everything from installation of Django on Mac, PC, or Linux to hosting the website in a production environment. The course is divided into 47 chapters that include installation, basic project setup, Django models, URL routing, Django Templates, Context rendering in Template, Django forms, dynamic URL linking, validations, custom mixin, and a lot more. We recommend this tutorial to anyone with basic knowledge of Python, HTML, and CSS, given it is free, you can just go spend few minutes and decide for yourself if it suits your learning style.

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Short Django Course: Getting Started

This is another good and short 2 hours Django course for beginners. This course is all about getting started with Django and getting the hang of it, nothing like a very comprehensive specialization that goes on for weeks. You get to learn the basics of creating a simple website using the Python Django framework. Key features used include templates and URL mapping, working with model classes, HTML forms, and the admin screens. We recommend this short course to anyone who has some knowledge of HTML and Python, else these 2 hours would not yield much for you.

More Details

Python Django Training and Certification

This is an instructor-led full certification course to master the Python Django framework from Edureka. Edureka currently runs weekend batches so you can check and schedule classes as per the availability. The certification teaches you to create real-world web applications using the Python Django framework. The certification program covers Django REST framework, Django jQuery, Ajax, Django models, basics of Python, and website building in general. We recommend this course to all beginners who like to be in interactive classes and learn along with others in a group.

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Learn web development with Python and Django: Tango with Django

Web application development includes many moving parts and multiple technologies to work together. This book Tango with Django covers everything in detail and teaches aspects of full-stack web application development. During this course, you will learn to build a simple web application that works as a directory of different categories and links. You will also learn to deploy the application on PythonAnywhere hosting service. While the instructor focuses more on the Django framework, you also get to learn about HTML5, CSS3, working with external APIs, CSS, JavaScript, Git version control, and Python 3.
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Final Thoughts

Here we come to the end of our review of the most popular Django framework courses, I have published an even detailed list that can help you find Django course for your specific needs and skill set.
You can check out the link finding the best Django course to speed up learning.