Computing has advanced dramatically over the past few decades. Earlier systems relied on programs that were installed and run on individual personal computers. Users would purchase software licenses, install the programs themselves, and then access those applications from their desktops. If you wanted to use an application on another computer, you had to install it there as well.

This model dominated computing for many years but was limited and static. It lacked interconnectivity and did not facilitate true collaboration or data sharing across machines. Users were confined to the specific software they installed locally and had to manage separate copies of files and settings on each computer they used.

The rise of networks, improved connectivity, and the early internet started to change this. New possibilities emerged for distributed software, real-time collaboration, and synchronized...

Building and publishing web applications on the cloud today relies on several key frameworks, languages, and techniques. Some of the most important are as follows:

• Web frameworks: Frameworks such as React, Angular, and Node.js make developing web apps easier and more efficient. They handle key tasks such as routing, state management, building components, and handling events. Developers can focus on writing code for their specific applications instead of building infrastructure.
• Server-side languages: Languages such as PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, Java, and C# are used on the server side to handle requests, access databases, build APIs, and generate dynamic web content. Node.js, which uses JavaScript, has also become very popular for server-side development.
• JavaScript: JavaScript is the primary language of the frontend web. It is used to build client-side interfaces, animate and create interactive content, handle user input...

There are some key differences to keep in mind when developing software applications versus cloud-based web applications:

• Installation: Traditional software needs to be installed on local machines or servers. This includes copying files, setting permissions, possibly configuring settings, and other setup steps. Web apps hosted on cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, and Azure are deployed and managed by the cloud provider. No local installation is required.
• Updates: Software updates typically require manual installation on all machines where the application is installed. Web apps hosted on the cloud are automatically updated when developers push new code deployments. Users always get the latest version without any manual work.
• Scalability: Servers hosting traditional software applications would require manual configuration to scale resources up or down as needed. Cloud infrastructure is infinitely scalable on demand through API calls or automatic...

Here’s an overview of some popular Python libraries for building web applications:

• Flask: A lightweight and flexible web framework. It’s great for building small to mid-sized apps. Some of its main features are as follows:
  • It has a minimal and intuitive core that can be easily extended. This makes it suitable for anyone looking to create web applications.
  • It supports extensions and integrates with many Python libraries. This allows you to easily expand its functionality.
  • It has built-in support for routing, templates, file uploading, and more, which means it’s quite easy to build APIs and render HTML templates.
  • It’s suited for both small and large-scale projects. Many big companies such as Airbnb and Pinterest use Flask.

  Let’s look at some situations when we should use Flask:

  • Building a small to mid-sized website or web app
  • When we need more flexibility and control than what a microframework...

Here are some useful examples of Streamlit’s capabilities:

• Interactive data exploration: Streamlit is great for building dashboards that allow users to explore datasets interactively. Users can filter, sort, pivot, search, select features, and analyze data from multiple perspectives.
• Prototyping minimum viable products (MVPs): Streamlit’s ease of use makes it perfect for building quick prototypes and MVPs. New ideas can be converted into shareable web apps in no time without any complex setup. This “code-first” approach speeds up iteration and feedback.
• Model deployment: Streamlit apps can expose trained machine learning (ML) models as web services. This allows other apps, scripts, or users to interact with and make predictions from the models. Apps become deployable, productive ML applications and platforms.
• Embeddings: Streamlit code and widgets can be embedded into Jupyter notebooks, JupyterLab...

The faster an idea can be turned into a tangible prototype, the greater the opportunities and advantages. There are several key benefits to building rough prototypes as quickly as possible:

• Get customer feedback early: By creating prototypes that embody an idea, even in a basic form, you can get real user feedback much sooner. Customers can experience the idea, comment on what they like and don’t like, and suggest important changes to make the final product more useful and appealing. Incorporating feedback early avoids wasting time and resources developing features or designs that don’t resonate with customers.
• Discover flaws and issues early: Early prototypes highlight any problems with how an idea might work in practice. Issues that are hard to identify conceptually become immediately obvious when developing a prototype. These issues can then be addressed, and alternative approaches can be explored before...

In this chapter, we introduced Streamlit from a theoretical point of view and looked at several reasons that make this framework an incredible tool for creating web applications and prototypes quickly and easily. Turning an idea into a prototype – or even better, into a working web application – quickly, easily, and painlessly is a terrific weapon in our hands. The power of such a library can only be fully expressed by using it, so let’s not wait any longer and start setting up our coding environment!

To start coding, we still need some things: a good operating system with a Python installation, an integrated development environment (IDE), virtual environments, and more.

In the next chapter, we are going to ensure that everything we need will be available and fully functioning. Don’t worry – this installation will act as the foundation for all our future developments!