Files
mia-accounting/docs/source/history.rst

2.8 KiB

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <style type="text/css"> /* :Author: David Goodger (goodger@python.org) :Id: $Id: html4css1.css 8954 2022-01-20 10:10:25Z milde $ :Copyright: This stylesheet has been placed in the public domain. Default cascading style sheet for the HTML output of Docutils. See https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/howto/html-stylesheets.html for how to customize this style sheet. */ /* used to remove borders from tables and images */ .borderless, table.borderless td, table.borderless th { border: 0 } table.borderless td, table.borderless th { /* Override padding for "table.docutils td" with "! important". The right padding separates the table cells. */ padding: 0 0.5em 0 0 ! important } .first { /* Override more specific margin styles with "! important". */ margin-top: 0 ! important } .last, .with-subtitle { margin-bottom: 0 ! important } .hidden { display: none } .subscript { vertical-align: sub; font-size: smaller } .superscript { vertical-align: super; font-size: smaller } a.toc-backref { text-decoration: none ; color: black } blockquote.epigraph { margin: 2em 5em ; } dl.docutils dd { margin-bottom: 0.5em } object[type="image/svg+xml"], object[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"] { overflow: hidden; } /* Uncomment (and remove this text!) to get bold-faced definition list terms dl.docutils dt { font-weight: bold } */ div.abstract { margin: 2em 5em } div.abstract p.topic-title { font-weight: bold ; text-align: center } div.admonition, div.attention, div.caution, div.danger, div.error, div.hint, div.important, div.note, div.tip, div.warning { margin: 2em ; border: medium outset ; padding: 1em } div.admonition p.admonition-title, div.hint p.admonition-title, div.important p.admonition-title, div.note p.admonition-title, div.tip p.admonition-title { font-weight: bold ; font-family: sans-serif } div.attention p.admonition-title, div.caution p.admonition-title, div.danger p.admonition-title, div.error p.admonition-title, div.warning p.admonition-title, .code .error { color: red ; font-weight: bold ; font-family: sans-serif } /* Uncomment (and remove this text!) to get reduced vertical space in compound paragraphs. div.compound .compound-first, div.compound .compound-middle { margin-bottom: 0.5em } div.compound .compound-last, div.compound .compound-middle { margin-top: 0.5em } */ div.dedication { margin: 2em 5em ; text-align: center ; font-style: italic } div.dedication p.topic-title { font-weight: bold ; font-style: normal } div.figure { margin-left: 2em ; margin-right: 2em } div.footer, div.header { clear: both; font-size: smaller } div.line-block { display: block ; margin-top: 1em ; margin-bottom: 1em } div.line-block div.line-block { margin-top: 0 ; margin-bottom: 0 ; margin-left: 1.5em } div.sidebar { margin: 0 0 0.5em 1em ; border: medium outset ; padding: 1em ; background-color: #ffffee ; width: 40% ; float: right ; clear: right } div.sidebar p.rubric { font-family: sans-serif ; font-size: medium } div.system-messages { margin: 5em } div.system-messages h1 { color: red } div.system-message { border: medium outset ; padding: 1em } div.system-message p.system-message-title { color: red ; font-weight: bold } div.topic { margin: 2em } h1.section-subtitle, h2.section-subtitle, h3.section-subtitle, h4.section-subtitle, h5.section-subtitle, h6.section-subtitle { margin-top: 0.4em } h1.title { text-align: center } h2.subtitle { text-align: center } hr.docutils { width: 75% } img.align-left, .figure.align-left, object.align-left, table.align-left { clear: left ; float: left ; margin-right: 1em } img.align-right, .figure.align-right, object.align-right, table.align-right { clear: right ; float: right ; margin-left: 1em } img.align-center, .figure.align-center, object.align-center { display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } table.align-center { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } .align-left { text-align: left } .align-center { clear: both ; text-align: center } .align-right { text-align: right } /* reset inner alignment in figures */ div.align-right { text-align: inherit } /* div.align-center * { */ /* text-align: left } */ .align-top { vertical-align: top } .align-middle { vertical-align: middle } .align-bottom { vertical-align: bottom } ol.simple, ul.simple { margin-bottom: 1em } ol.arabic { list-style: decimal } ol.loweralpha { list-style: lower-alpha } ol.upperalpha { list-style: upper-alpha } ol.lowerroman { list-style: lower-roman } ol.upperroman { list-style: upper-roman } p.attribution { text-align: right ; margin-left: 50% } p.caption { font-style: italic } p.credits { font-style: italic ; font-size: smaller } p.label { white-space: nowrap } p.rubric { font-weight: bold ; font-size: larger ; color: maroon ; text-align: center } p.sidebar-title { font-family: sans-serif ; font-weight: bold ; font-size: larger } p.sidebar-subtitle { font-family: sans-serif ; font-weight: bold } p.topic-title { font-weight: bold } pre.address { margin-bottom: 0 ; margin-top: 0 ; font: inherit } pre.literal-block, pre.doctest-block, pre.math, pre.code { margin-left: 2em ; margin-right: 2em } pre.code .ln { color: grey; } /* line numbers */ pre.code, code { background-color: #eeeeee } pre.code .comment, code .comment { color: #5C6576 } pre.code .keyword, code .keyword { color: #3B0D06; font-weight: bold } pre.code .literal.string, code .literal.string { color: #0C5404 } pre.code .name.builtin, code .name.builtin { color: #352B84 } pre.code .deleted, code .deleted { background-color: #DEB0A1} pre.code .inserted, code .inserted { background-color: #A3D289} span.classifier { font-family: sans-serif ; font-style: oblique } span.classifier-delimiter { font-family: sans-serif ; font-weight: bold } span.interpreted { font-family: sans-serif } span.option { white-space: nowrap } span.pre { white-space: pre } span.problematic { color: red } span.section-subtitle { /* font-size relative to parent (h1..h6 element) */ font-size: 80% } table.citation { border-left: solid 1px gray; margin-left: 1px } table.docinfo { margin: 2em 4em } table.docutils { margin-top: 0.5em ; margin-bottom: 0.5em } table.footnote { border-left: solid 1px black; margin-left: 1px } table.docutils td, table.docutils th, table.docinfo td, table.docinfo th { padding-left: 0.5em ; padding-right: 0.5em ; vertical-align: top } table.docutils th.field-name, table.docinfo th.docinfo-name { font-weight: bold ; text-align: left ; white-space: nowrap ; padding-left: 0 } /* "booktabs" style (no vertical lines) */ table.docutils.booktabs { border: 0px; border-top: 2px solid; border-bottom: 2px solid; border-collapse: collapse; } table.docutils.booktabs * { border: 0px; } table.docutils.booktabs th { border-bottom: thin solid; text-align: left; } h1 tt.docutils, h2 tt.docutils, h3 tt.docutils, h4 tt.docutils, h5 tt.docutils, h6 tt.docutils { font-size: 100% } ul.auto-toc { list-style-type: none } </style> </head>

History

I created my own private accounting application in Perl/mod_perl in 2007, as part of my personal website. The first revision was made using Perl/Mojolicious in 2019, with the aim of making it mobile-friendly using Bootstrap, and with modern back-end and front-end technologies such as jQuery.

The second revision was done in Python/Django in 2020, as I was looking to change my career from PHP/Laravel to Python, but lacked experience with large Python projects. I needed something in my portfolio and decided to work on the somewhat outdated Mojolicious project.

Despite having no prior experience with Django, I spent two months working late nights to create the Mia! Accounting Django application. It took me another 1.5 months to make it an independent module, which I later released as an open source project on PyPI.

The application worked nicely for my household bookkeeping for two years. However, new demands arose over time, especially with tracking payables and receivables. This was critical during the pandemic as more payments were made online with credit cards.

The biggest issue I encountered was with Django's MTV architectural pattern. Django takes over the control flow. I had to override several parts of the class-based views for different but yet simple control flow logic. In the end, it became very difficult to track whether things went wrong because I overrode something or because it just wouldn't work with the basic assumption of the class-based views. By the time I realized it, it was too late for me to drop Django's MTV and rewrite everything from class-based views to function-based views.

Therefore, I decided to turn to microframeworks like Flask. After working with modularized Flask and FastAPI applications for two years, I returned to the project and wrote its third revision using Flask in 2023.

</html>