Build The Next Generation Of Python Web Applications With FastAPI

Summary

Python has an embarrasment of riches when it comes to web frameworks, each with their own particular strengths. FastAPI is a new entrant that has been quickly gaining popularity as a performant and easy to use toolchain for building RESTful web services. In this episode Sebastián Ramirez shares the story of the frustrations that led him to create a new framework, how he put in the extra effort to make the developer experience as smooth and painless as possible, and how he embraces extensability with lightweight dependency injection and a straightforward plugin interface. If you are starting a new web application today then FastAPI should be at the top of your list.

Announcements

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• Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Sebastián Ramirez about FastAPI, a framework for building production ready APIs in Python 3

Interview

• Introductions
• How did you get introduced to Python?
• Can you start by describing what FastAPI is?
  • What are the main frustrations that you ran into with other frameworks that motivated you to create an entirely new one?
• What are some of the main use cases that FastAPI is designed for?
• Many web frameworks focus on managing the end-to-end functionality of a website, including the UI. Why did you focus on just API capabilities?
  • What are the benefits of building an API only framework?
  • If you wanted to integrate a presentation layer, what would be involved in that effort?
• What API formats does FastAPI support?
  • What would be involved in adding support for additional specifications such as GraphQL or JSON-LD?
• There are a huge number of web frameworks available just in the Python ecosystem. How does FastAPI fit into that landscape and why might someone choose it over the other options?
• Can you share your design philosophy for the project?
  • What are your main sources of inspiration for the framework?
  • You have also built the Typer CLI library which you refer to as the little sibling of FastAPI. How have your experiences building these two projects influenced their counterpart’s evolution?
• What are the benefits of incorporating type annotations into a web framework and in what ways do they manifest in its functionality?
• What is the workflow for a developer building a complex application in FastAPI?
• Can you describe how FastAPI itself is architected and how its design has evolved since you first began working on it?
  • What are the extension points that are available for someone to build plugins for FastAPI?
• What are some of the challenges that you have faced in building an async framework that is leveraging the new ASGI specification?
• What are some sharp edges that users should keep an eye out for?
• What are some unique or underutilized features of FastAPI that users might not be aware of?
• What are some of the most interesting, unexpected, or innovative ways that you have seen FastAPI used?
• When is FastAPI the wrong choice?
• What are some of the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned in the process of building and maintaining FastAPI?
• What do you have planned for the future of the project?

Keep In Touch

@tiangolo on Twitter. @tiangolo on GitHub.

Picks

• Tobias
  • Once Upon A Time TV Show
• Sebastián
  • Cloud Atlas Movie
  • Isaac Asimov’s robot short stories
  • Python devtools debug function
  • async compatible requests with HTTPX
  • RescueTime for automatic time tracking
  • Joplin for Notes

Closing Announcements

• Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to check out our other show, the Data Engineering Podcast for the latest on modern data management.
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Links

• FastAPI
• Typer
• Typer CLI
• FastAPI Alternatives, Inspiration and Comparisons
• Explosion’s spaCy
• Explosion’s Prodigy
• Starlette
• Pydantic
• Uvicorn
• Hypercorn
• fastapi-utils
  • Class Based Views
• GrahQL Ariadne
• Coronavirus Tracker API
• Terminals from browser: termpair
• XPublish
• Uber’s Ludwig
• Netflix Dispatch
• Colombia
• Berlin Germany
• Explosion AI
• Python Type Annotations
• Django Rest Framework
• Flask
• Swagger/OpenAPI
• Sanic
• NodeJS
• JSON Schema
• OAuth2
• Swagger UI
• ReDoc
• React
• VueJS
• Angular
• REST == REpresentational State Transfer
• JSON-LD
• Go Language
• Hug API framework
• Click CLI Framework
• Flask Blueprints
• Tom Christie
  • Podcast Interview
• Dependency Injection
• ASGI
  • Podcast Episode
• WSGI
• Thread Local Variables
• Context Vars
• OAUTH2 Scopes
• PipX
• XArray
• JAM Stack
• NextJS
• Hugo
• GatsbyJS
• FastAPI Project Templates

The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA