Portable Django

Why?

Why not?

This seems great. I do not have a clue as to what are the best ways to get a modern Python GUI app running, but I can absolutely slam together a Django application to make a web form. Hugely lower barrier to entry than trying to tackle Electron.

Is it efficient or web scale? Probably not, but I will definitely consider this rather than say Gooey.

djngo.com is the culmination of years of effort, creating a single file python executable that runs on all platforms. This project is based on APE (https://justine.lol/ape.html) and in the past few days, our Python APE port (called python.com) became good enough to run Django. So we put Django inside the executable too, and called it djngo.com. The djngo.com executable will just work on the following platforms:

- Apple x86_64 and ARM64

- Linux running x86_64 or ARM64 (Raspberry Pi)

- Windows running x86_64 and possibly ARM64 too

- FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD running x86_64

It does not require that Python be installed beforehand. It's a native Python executable. It does not require Rosetta or Qemu be installed either, in order to run ARM64 platforms. It does not require Cygwin or MSYS2 runtimes in order to run on WIN32. It only depends on KERNEL32. It has an embedded JIT VM called Blink (https://github.com/jart/blink) which it pulls out on non-x86 platforms to emulate itself. All its dependencies are bundled inside using a zip polyglot, including the Python standard library:

    unzip -vl djngo.com
    ...
    5588  Defl:N     1707  70% 02-23-2023 16:06 26fb04f6  .python/django/shortcuts.py
       0  Stored        0   0% 02-23-2023 16:05 00000000  .python/ctypes/
      34  Stored       34   0% 02-23-2023 16:05 1b5bb9b2  .python/ctypes/__init__.py
    --------          -------  ---                            -------
    35075517         11728493  67%                            7171 files

You can put your app's assets inside the djngo.com file too, using the standard zip tool. You can then rename the file, and insert a `.args` file that supplies default args for launching your white-labeled app.

This means that if you're a Django app developer, you can now easily share your apps with others wanting to run it locally. It's almost as easy for anyone on any platform to use, as if you productionized it onto a website. Rather than a hyperlink away, it's a single file download and CLI invocation away. You won't need to explain things like, "here's how you install Python on Windows" or "here's how you install Docker and setup a Linux distro, in order to run my app." Your users will be in full control of the app, granting maximum privacy and control over data, and zero operations toil for you!

The technical reason for choosing Python 3.6 no longer applies due to how quickly cosmo has advanced in the past months (in particular thread support). jart and ahgamut were the ones who made it happen, I am only a python.com user.

But if you want Django 4 and Python 3.11, here is some info copied from the website:

3. Newer Python and newer Django? It is possible to have a djngo.com with Django 4 and Python 3.11. Solved by aghgamut who was the first to port Python to Cosmopolitan. Please note that this Python and the one that djngo.com use are different, the later has been heavily optimized by jart to run well on cosmo, the former is as close as upstream as you can get. Choose your destiny.

curl -O https://djngo.com/djngo4-py311.com