Product Description

This latest edition of The Definitive Guide to Django is updated for Django 1.1, and, with the forward–compatibility guarantee that Django now provides, should serve as the ultimate tutorial and reference for this popular framework for years to come. Django, the Python–based equivalent to Ruby’s Rails web development framework, is one of the hottest topics in web development today. Lead developer Jacob Kaplan–Moss and Django creator Adrian Holovaty show you how they use this framework to create award–winning web sites by guiding you through the creation of a web application reminiscent of www.chicagocrime.org. Django: Web Development Done Right is broken into three parts, with the first introducing Django fundamentals such as installation and configuration, and creating the components that together power a Django–driven web site. The second part delves into the more sophisticated features of Django, including outputting non–HTML content such as RSS feeds and PDFs, caching, and user management. The appendixes serve as a detailed reference to Django’s many configuration options and commands.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42527 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 536 pages

About the Author

Adrian Holovaty

Adrian Holovaty, a web developer/journalist, is one of the creators and core developers of Django. He works at washingtonpost.com, where he builds database web applications and does "journalism as computer programming." Previously, he was lead developer for World Online in Lawrence, Kansas, where Django was created.

When not working on Django improvements, Adrian hacks on side projects for the public good, such as chicagocrime.org, which won the 2005 Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism.Jacob Kaplan-Moss

Jacob Kaplan-Moss is one of the lead developers of Django. At his day job, he's the lead developer for the Lawrence Journal-World, a locally owned newspaper in Lawrence, Kansas, where Django was developed. At the Journal-World, Jacob hacks on a number of sites including lawrence.com, LJWorld.com, and KUsports.com, and he is continually embarrassed by the multitude of media awards those sites win. In his spare time--what little of it there is--he fancies himself a chef.

Customer Reviews

Great book, but beware of outdated sections
This book is a fine and comprehensive romp through the essential workings and features of the Django python web development framework.

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, 'Getting started', takes you from the concept of MVC through installation to the mechanics of getting a basic database-backed site up and running. Part 2, 'Subframeworks', goes on to discuss more advanced topics like the awesome generic views, caching, middleware, internationalisation and linking up with legacy databases. Part 3 consists of 8 reference appendices.

I love the tone of the writing in this book. It's concise, detailed where necessary, and occasionally irreverent (particularly when discussing Java and PHP!). Visually it looks great, following the current design of other Apress books.

On the negative side, Django is a fast moving project, and in a state of flux at the time of publishing (Dec '07). Chapter 7, Form Processing, seems to suffer most as the section on automatic form classes uses deprecated functions (according to the website), and their replacement, ModelForms, doesn't even get a mention. Also, there is only talk of the now-implemented 'auto-escaping' of browser input, so keep an eye on the Django project docs. Finally, there is the odd place where it's not quite clear into which file a particular code extract should go, and here and there I'd like to see more example usage.

Aah, the joys of book publishing. Still, I can't wait for a second edition when development has calmed down a bit!

Fortunately, given the unique way in which this book was written (do a web search for 'djangobook' and you'll see what I mean), you can give very precise feedback on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, or get technical feedback provided by other readers. You might even get a credit in the next edition!

Overall, this book is essential for anyone getting into Django web development. Four stars + 1 for the way in which you can contribute back to the book.

Definitive Django Guide done right!
Forget Rails...been anticipating this book for some 6 months now and it's most definitely not a disappointment. Logically laid out and written in a style that shares enthusiasm for what is a fine web framework. If you're starting out in Django or need a desktop reference pick this up and get cracking. You'll undoubtedly be surprised how easy it is to build websites with Django, I'm not a programer, a web designer by trade and it impressed me with how much can be accomplished with only a basic knowledge of the framework. Highly recommended, what are you waiting for??

Great book... - so long as you have some existing programming skills
This is a great book. Django has now stabilised sufficiently that it is possible to write a book covering its usage and worth buying such a book. If you have good linux sys admin skills you can pick it up and easily work through it. I recommend you purchase another book like 'Practical Django Projects' and start working through those projects after you have finished 'The Definitive Guide to Django'. The definitive guide covers a lot of ground and you will certainly need to concentrate but I doubt you will find a better book with which to learn Django so long as you already have some experience in the programming, web development sys admin area. If you are a beginner I would start somewhere else.