A Cryptocurrency Powered E-commerce Store Called Strmline

Apr 6, 2020

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In this episode of Running in Production, Ty Cooper goes over building a cryptocurrency powered e-commerce store with Flask and Python. It’s hosted on Firebase along with PythonAnywhere and has been up and running since October 2019.

Ty talks about the challenges of accepting cryptocurrency (specifically Ethereum), how he hosts the site using Firebase and PythonAnywhere, why he chose those services, the value of end to end tests using Selenium, the benefits of working with someone else instead of trying to do everything alone and more.

Topics Include

1:02 – Switching gears and making a different site after running into a road block
2:36 – Motivation for using Flask over Django and other frameworks
4:27 – Flask makes it easy to get into without needing to open multiple cans of worms
4:54 – Would you use Flask again today if you had to re-write the site from scratch?
6:42 – Flask manipulates data but the database and storage is hosted on Firebase
8:00 – Flask-JWT-Extended helps deal with token based auth for his Flask API back-end
8:41 – The app is API based with a VueJS back-end because Ty likes JavaScript and VueJS
10:21 – Challenges for trying to sell products with cryptocurrency
11:25 – The web3.py library helps interact with the Ethereum blockchain
11:51 – Building an email newsletter sender with Flask-Mail
14:23 – PythonAnywhere is used to host the Flask app and comes with logging
15:07 – Twilio’s API is used to send Ty text messages if errors occur
15:46 – What Firebase is and how it helps run a few things in development and production
17:28 – Why use Firebase and PythonAnywhere vs using Heroku or hosting your own server?
18:21 – About $12 / month to host 3 different apps on PythonAnywhere
19:02 – You configure your CNAME DNS records to point to PythonAnywhere
19:29 – Firebase directly hosts all of the front-end files such as JavaScript and CSS
20:22 – PythonAnywhere gives you free SSL certificates
20:28 – Ty hosts 50+ sites through PythonAnywhere and gets 10k+ monthly visitors
22:15 – Learning to deploy your own apps is rewarding but there’s a lot to learn
23:38 – What it looks like to deploy code from development to production
25:14 – Automated end to end testing with Selenium
26:50 – Getting banned on Tinder for using Selenium to make too many automated requests
27:04 – Mozzarella cheese
28:16 – Dealing with secret keys through environment variables using PythonAnywhere
29:18 – Database backups are done once a month
30:59 – Product images are uploaded directly from the front-end to Firebase
32:48 – Placeholders are used to help show graceful errors if something goes down
34:54 – Firebase and PythonAnywhere will notify Ty automatically if the site goes down
35:40 – Best tips? Learn by doing and don’t worry about making mistakes
37:30 – One mistake Ty made was developing the project alone, a 2nd set of eyes is helpful
39:28 – Having someone else around really helps with keeping you on track
41:01 – Find Ty on Instagram along with Twitter, Reddit and Youtube

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A Cryptocurrency Powered E-commerce Store Called Strmline

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