Aug 12 2007

Django-isms

Django & Me

It’s been a while since I’ve been using the python web framework named after the Jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt, Django. I’ve been meaning to blog about it for quite a while now, but lack of time and laziness have prevailed. Django is still relatively unknown when compared to one of it’s rival* frameworks, Rails. Rails has been the darling of web 2.0 and is a framework for Ruby based web application development. A couple of years ago I was confronted with a project that required rapid development, relatively complex data handling, robust interface development and an administrative side. The time constraints placed on the project took me on the hunt for a suitable framework which would enable us to achieve our goals. I came across both Rails and Django along with a host of other frameworks. These were the two that stood out though. Django for it’s brilliant website and example application (Chicagocrime.org), and Rails for the people behind it and the applications they had created from it. Both communities seemed friendly and active, as well as the active involvement of the actual founders of both projects. Familiarity with python, the killer Django Admin interface, the fact that Django was created for a newsroom with different data handling needs, the fact that the scalability of Django at production was already proven and the loose coupling provided by Django, made the choice for me pretty simple. Though I still think there are instances where Rails is a better choice, for me picking Django was almost a no-brainer.

Starting Out

Django makes it pretty easy for newbies to get their feet wet. They have a good four part tutorial on their website, and they also have a book coming out, the book can also be viewed online currently, until it gets published. Other solid places to go for help, are the mailing lists, the wiki and on IRC. Usually your question gets answered pretty quickly by someone knowledgeable in the matter. A simple google search will also bring up a list of blogs and other websites offering tips and good info. Recently there has also been a glut of “middleware” applications for Django, apps you can plug into your app, which can be found on Google Code.

*rival in terms of Web Application Frameworks, not Python Frameworks.