Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#1

Post by ciniglio » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 7:45 PM UTC

I'm debating whether to pick up Ruby on Rails in addition to my basic django knowledge, and as I explore the RoR community, I can't help but be amazed at how rich and active it is. For learning rails there are 3 very high quality books that talk about the latest version (Rails Way, Rails Tutorial, Agile Web Development with Rails). Compare this to the books available Django, none of which discuss the latest edition and many of which are outdated(e.g. Django book v2 (the latest ed.) covers Django 1.0!).

This doesn't touch on the huge number of blogs/sites that are dedicated to ruby news and tips (e.g. planetrubyonrails, railscasts, etc.).

Is there a reason for this discrepancy between the two ecosystems? Am I just not aware of where the Django community lives? Also, for those of you using Django or Rails, did the size of the community for your framework of choice influence your decision?

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#2

Post by petercooper » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:10 PM UTC

This is part of the reason that some people claim "the Ruby community" is full of drama. In reality, it has no more drama than any other group of people. The difference is, those people interact with each other and publish a lot, so any disagreements are more visible.

Anyway, maybe one place to start is http://djangoweek.ly/ - not exactly a community but it's a news service so you're likely to be led to interesting places.

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#3

Post by tghw » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:15 PM UTC

I think part of the difference is that the Django docs are just so good, there isn't a lot I can think of that a book would add.

DjangoSnippets.org is also pretty useful, as are the multitudes of Django apps available on GitHub and BitBucket.

You can also hang out in #django on freenode. People can sometimes be a bit gruff with noobs (though what IRC channel isn't) but there are usually some good discussions going on there.

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#4

Post by hsparikh » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:20 PM UTC

I am newbie when it comes to development, and I had the same choice between developing my product on RoR or Django. I chose Django, and between the tutorial, docs, and the google mailing list, I think there is a pretty good community out there.

A book would be nice, but there are some good apps on registraton, profile, etc. available on GitHub or BitBucket out there. Granted, it might not be plug and play like in the case of RoR, but I have found it to be alright so far.

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#5

Post by ulvund » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:31 PM UTC

List of communities:

https://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/DjangoResources#Communit...

Mailing lists:

https://www.djangoproject.com/community/ on the right

Sizes of communities:

reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/django - 4,181 readers

http://www.reddit.com/r/rails - 1,994 readers

http://www.reddit.com/r/rubyonrails - 921 readers

Stackoverflow:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/django 20k tagged

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ruby-on-rails 40k tagged

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#6

Post by maxklein » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:37 PM UTC

Let me tell you the truth, though this will not be popular: Django is not a good framework. It's clumsy, inflexible and restrictive. The community is pretty much dead.

If you want to work in ruby, go for ror. If you want to work in python, go for a micro framework like Bottle.

I made the mistake of investing a lot of my time in Django. It was not worth it in the end. All my Django projects ended up being a big mess, and I had to undjango my way out of the various restrictions it placed on me.

And the community in general seems to agree - there is not much different in the django ecosystem, comparing 2 years ago to now.

My advice, go for Ruby On Rails or Bottle. Leave Django alone.

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#7

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:40 PM UTC

maxklein wrote: post #6

Let me tell you the truth, though this will not be popular: Django is not a good framework. It's clumsy, inflexible and restrictive. The community is pretty much dead. If you want to work in ruby, go for ror. If you want to work in python, go for a micro framework like Bottle. I made the mistake of investing a lot of my time in Django. It was not worth it in the end. All my Django projects ended up being a big mess,…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#8

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:40 PM UTC

maxklein wrote: post #6

Let me tell you the truth, though this will not be popular: Django is not a good framework. It's clumsy, inflexible and restrictive. The community is pretty much dead. If you want to work in ruby, go for ror. If you want to work in python, go for a micro framework like Bottle. I made the mistake of investing a lot of my time in Django. It was not worth it in the end. All my Django projects ended up being a big mess,…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#9

Post by simonsarris » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:40 PM UTC

maxklein wrote: post #6

Let me tell you the truth, though this will not be popular: Django is not a good framework. It's clumsy, inflexible and restrictive. The community is pretty much dead. If you want to work in ruby, go for ror. If you want to work in python, go for a micro framework like Bottle. I made the mistake of investing a lot of my time in Django. It was not worth it in the end. All my Django projects ended up being a big mess,…

This is what I did (Django for one project -> moved to Rails) and second this.

I think Django is a lot easier to get started with, but RoR is much more thought out.

OP should also read:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/37113340/Why-Django-Sucks-and-How-...

Which summarizes some of the problems I had with it. Getting components to work was always a custom job; a stark difference compared with the ease of getting Rails components to work.

Re: Ask HN: Where is the Django community?

#10

Post by chrisgo » Mon, Jul 18, 2011, 8:46 PM UTC

maxklein wrote: post #6

Let me tell you the truth, though this will not be popular: Django is not a good framework. It's clumsy, inflexible and restrictive. The community is pretty much dead. If you want to work in ruby, go for ror. If you want to work in python, go for a micro framework like Bottle. I made the mistake of investing a lot of my time in Django. It was not worth it in the end. All my Django projects ended up being a big mess,…

Any experience with web2py?