

Show HN: SAT Hot Words, built by a teenager using Python and Firebase (mostly) - asselinpaul

Sat Hot Words is a small service app I wrote to help me learn the vocabulary needed to bomb the SAT (lets not talk about the test itself (cringes) it's terrible).<p>sathotwords.com<p>Software stack<p>Frontend: HTML, CSS, JS(+jQuery) (and a bit of FlatUI styling)<p>Backend: Python script hosted on Appfog, Firebase<p>Hosting(and some workarounds):<p>Both the front-end and python script are hosted on Appfog, which has been a really great platform up to now. Their 'free' tier is amazing (2GB Ram). To host the static front-end(HTML,CSS,JS), I had to pretend it was a PHP application as their is no option for this on Appfog. For the python script, I required a few dependencies and Appfog doesn't currently install dependencies for standalone python app (they are working on it apparently). The work around wasn't too complicated, implementing it as a Flask based app solved the problem (requirements.txt is read if you're using a pythonic web framework).<p>Some thoughts<p>Building stuff is really the best way to learn a language and it's features. I cannot stress this enough, it's so satisfying to write something yourself and see it work.<p>I'm actually quite proud of my little script(roughly 200 loc), there are a few neat little gems in it that I was particularly proud of (recursion, always makes me smile).<p>Why did I choose Appfog instead of [insert cloud hosting company]? They are generous with their free tier, as a 16/17 year old that's important, plus it's actually really awesome.<p>How's Firebase? Firebase is great, using it as a database replacement here and it's actually easier to integrate than a proper database (of course there are differences, Firebase just happened to be a good match for this). You should check that out also.<p>I firmly believe that education should be as cheap and as open as possible (I fully support, admire and use Khan Academy).<p>Are you a startup/company in London<p>http://pastebin.com/jLXwkZh0<p>me@asselinpaul.com
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asselinpaul
Clickable <http://sathotwords.com>

<http://pastebin.com/jLXwkZh0>

