flask/docs/foreword.rst

Foreword
========

Read this before you get started with Flask.  This hopefully answers some
questions about the intention of the project, what it aims at and when you
should or should not be using it.

What does Micro Mean?
---------------------

The micro in microframework for me means on the one hand being small in
size and complexity but on the other hand also that the complexity of the
applications that are written with these frameworks do not exceed a
certain size.  A microframework like Flask sacrifices a few things in
order to be approachable and to be as concise as possible.

For example Flask uses thread local objects internally so that you don't
have to pass objects around from function to function within a request in
order to stay threadsafe.  While this is a really easy approach and saves
you a lot of time, it also does not scale well to large applications.
It's especially painful for more complex unittests and when you suddenly
have to deal with code being executed outside of the context of a request
(for example if you have cronjobs).

Flask provides some tools to deal with the downsides of this approach but
the core problem of this approach obviously stays.  It is also based on
convention over configuration which means that a lot of things are
preconfigured in Flask and will work well for smaller applications but not
so much for larger ones (where and how it looks for templates, static
files etc.)

But don't worry if your application suddenly grows larger than it was
initially and you're afraid Flask might not grow with it.  Even with
larger frameworks you sooner or later will find out that you need
something the framework just cannot do for you without modification.
If you are ever in that situation, check out the :ref:`becomingbig`
chapter.

A Framework and An Example
--------------------------

Flask is not only a microframework, it is also an example.  Based on
Flask, there will be a series of blog posts that explain how to create a
framework.  Flask itself is just one way to implement a framework on top
of existing libraries.  Unlike many other microframeworks Flask does not
try to implement anything on its own, it reuses existing code.

Web Development is Dangerous
----------------------------

I'm not even joking.  Well, maybe a little.  If you write a web
application you are probably allowing users to register and leave their
data on your server.  The users are entrusting you with data.  And even if
you are the only user that might leave data in your application, you still
want that data to be stored in a secure manner.

Unfortunately there are many ways security of a web application can be
compromised.  Flask protects you against one of the most common security
problems of modern web applications: cross site scripting (XSS).  Unless
you deliberately mark insecure HTML as secure Flask (and the underlying
Jinja2 template engine) have you covered.  But there are many more ways to
cause security problems.

Whenever something is dangerous where you have to watch out, the
documentation will tell you so.  Some of the security concerns of web
development are far more complex than one might think and often we all end
up in situations where we think "well, this is just far fetched, how could
that possibly be exploited" and then an intelligent guy comes along and
figures a way out to exploit that application.  And don't think, your
application is not important enough for hackers to take notice.  Depending
on the kind of attack, chances are there are automated botnets out there
trying to figure out how to fill your database with viagra advertisements.

So always keep that in mind when doing web development.

Target Audience
---------------

Is Flask for you?  If your application small-ish and does not depend on
too complex database structures, Flask is the Framework for you.  It was
designed from the ground up to be easy to use, based on established
principles, good intentions and on top of two established libraries in
widespread usage.  Recent versions of Flask scale nicely within reasonable
bounds and if you grow larger, you won't have any troubles adjusting Flask
for your new application size.

Flask serves two purposes: it's an example of how to create a minimal and
opinionated framework on top of Werkzeug to show how this can be done, and
to provide people with a simple tool to prototype larger applications or
to implement small and medium sized applications.

If you suddenly discover that your application grows larger than
originally intended, head over to the :ref:`becomingbig` section to see
some possible solutions for larger applications.

Satisfied?  Then head over to the :ref:`installation`.