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Django - starting from ground zero - any advice?

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11–20 of 42 posts

Re: Django - starting from ground zero - any advice?

#11
"If you want to get smart - get doing." Code, code as much as you can and try and sway off the beaten path. My first project led me into middleware, user profiles and custom fields. I would also suggest that you rather use trunk than the 0.96 release.

Also, because no one has mentioned it before: http://djangobook.com/

Re: Django - starting from ground zero - any advice?

#12
It takes very little time to learn how to do things in Django but it does take a long time to learn how to do them the best way.

Don't worry when you start about doing them the best way. Its often better to make the mistakes (while still exploring) and your next app will just be that much better.

Good luck and great choice :)!

Re: Django - starting from ground zero - any advice?

#13
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point; I think he meant "square one" instead of "ground zero" Oh... and when he's done he'll be on "cloud nine". English is weird.

All languages are weird, but pointing out a fairly substantial error is not a bad thing; unless it's done in a mean spirited way.

I don't think this is a "fairly substantial" error. I understood what he meant, and I wasn't offended... so it's just a slight problem (like forgetting a comma, or using "affect" instead of "effect").

Re: Django - starting from ground zero - any advice?

#15
I had a look at django recently. Last week actually. My advise would be to start coding. Make sure the thing is installed right and that you can talk to your database of choice and that your examples run.

Then start coding. It's not too difficult. Some of the things with template engine are a bit funny, so try and not write any big code here, move it to the view/model. But otherwise remember that google is your friend.

My app is a geo based app, but I couldn't get geodjango to play nice. So I just installed the libs and went with that.

Re: Django - starting from ground zero - any advice?

#17

Also, if you want to keep up with the Django community and changes to Django code, I would recommend the "This Week in Django" podcast. Read more about it in Michael Triers blog at http://blog.michaeltrier.com/

Seconded - really excellent podcast, also a great way of catching up on what's happened in the past week.

Re: Django - starting from ground zero - any advice?

#20

I like the post and the replies. Hacker News seems to be a really good forum for inquiries of this nature. But what on earth is "Damaged by Java" supposed to convey? I guess you find Python with Django to suit your particular needs better than Java, no reason to play down the latter though.

I modded you up because I agree, but I also was in the situation where I was damaged by Java so I feel the need to respond.

Java is good, but I always felt so constrained when writing code. It just felt like I had to write so much extra junk code like getters and setters that it made rapid prototyping which I do a lot a hassle.

Python was a breath of fresh air, and is a great language for hacking around in. Java is very useful and I still use it quite a bit.

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