**[Full Stack Python](https://www.fullstackpython.com/)** began five years

ago today, on December 23, 2012, with

[Git commit 69f5f46](https://github.com/mattmakai/fullstackpython.com/commit/69f5f466196f572aab187504d52bc368cde840cd).

I originally built the site to help out a group of junior developers that

kept asking me similar Python web development questions via email. It seemed

like the answers would be useful to more people if I put them in a

publicly-accessible location. One day over lunch with a friend before I

started writing I sketched out some of my vague ideas on a napkin:

The site started as a single page

[static website](https://www.fullstackpython.com/static-site-generator.html)

but eventually was split into topic-specific pages such as:

* [deployments](https://www.fullstackpython.com/deployments.html)

* [servers](https://www.fullstackpython.com/servers.html)

* [web frameworks](https://www.fullstackpython.com/web-frameworks.html)

* [WSGI servers](https://www.fullstackpython.com/wsgi-servers.html)

* [source control](https://www.fullstackpython.com/source-control.html)

* [operating systems](https://www.fullstackpython.com/operating-systems.html)

* [web servers](https://www.fullstackpython.com/web-servers.html)

Most pages were on deployment and web framework topics. I have made a

concerted effort to write more about

[data](https://www.fullstackpython.com/data.html) and

[development environment](https://www.fullstackpython.com/development-environments.html)

subjects as I continue to learn and grow my own software development skills.

In some ways Full Stack Python's evolution represents my own growth as a

programmer.

The site now has over 120,000 words and 150+ pages, split between topics

pages and [tutorial blog posts](https://www.fullstackpython.com/blog.html).

I've also given a few technical talks on many of these topics, such as

[Full Stack Python](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6NaOKD40rY) at

EuroPython 2014 and

[WebSockets in Python](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5YQbNrFfyw) at

the San Francisco Python meetup. With so much content on the site, it's time

to revamp many of the original pages to ensure they are still accurate and

contain solid resources that explain those subjects. It can be sad to see so

many awesome blog posts I used to reference that have succumbed to link rot.

Maintenance takes up an increasing amount of time spent working on the site

so please submit

[issue tickets](https://github.com/mattmakai/fullstackpython.com/issues)

whenever you see a 404 or a link that's not the original correct resource.

Full Stack Python has now been read by over 2.5 million developers, but

it took a long time to get to that milestone. In fact there were only a few

hundred readers within the first year. Over time with daily updates I have

been fortunate to grow the readership to around 125,000 developers per month.

<img src="https://www.fullstackpython.com/img/visuals/traffic.jpg" width="100%" class="rnd" alt="Full Stack Python traffic growth via Google Analytics.">

Watching the numbers go up has been fun but the best part is receiving

"thank you" emails and tweets, as well as talking to readers in person at

PyCon. Keep those emails coming as they keep me motivated to continue writing!

If you'll be at PyCon in April, I'll definitely be there at the

[Twilio](https://www.twilio.com/) booth or around the community

booths where [Michael Kennedy of Talk Python to Me](https://talkpython.fm/)

and other Python community folks such as [Dan Bader](https://dbader.org/),

[Adrian Rosebrock of PyImageSearch](https://www.pyimagesearch.com/)

[Bob Belderbos of PyBites](https://pybit.es/) and the

[Real Python](https://realpython.com) guys will also be hanging out.

It's been a real pleasure working on Full Stack Python over the past five

years and I'm really excited for what's coming for the site in the next

five years. The

[change log page](https://www.fullstackpython.com/change-log.html) contains

a complete list of major modifications and

[future directions](https://www.fullstackpython.com/future-directions.html)

has some insight into my thought process for creating additional content.