Customer Reviews

Learning Website Development with Django: A beginner's tutorial to building web applications, quickly and cleanly, with the Django application framework (From Technologies to Solutions)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book will basically guide you along the development of a web application that allows users to submit and share bookmarks. Unlike the online Django documentation, where snippets of code are presented to illustrate usage of particular features, this book takes you from start to finish of a complete web application. As other reviews point out, the book covers many popular features found in modern sites, including ajax, tags, pagination and rss.

The book is written based on Django 0.96 and there are a few places where the code breaks under Django 1.0. However, I didn't find debugging the code a big deal. As a matter of fact, it was a great opportunity for me to use the online Django documentation. You will eventually need to use Django's documentation anyway when you start writing your own apps.

If you don't want to debug, here are the code changes that you will need to make for the code to work with Django 1.0:

maxlength --> max_length @pp. 33, 68

form.has_errors --> form.errors @pp. 46, 52

clean_data --> cleaned_data @pp. 59, 60, 65, 73, 130

comment_form --> render_comment_form @pp. 144

don't create form.html @pp. 145

don't create posted.html @pp. 146

chapter 8: - many changes. To get admin working:
in settings.py add:
'django.contrib.admin'
in urls.py add:
from django.contrib import admin
admin.autodiscover()
(r'^comments/', include('django.contrib.comments.urls'))

This is a great book for getting started with Django. You will leave this book with a good idea of how to create very rich Django applications.

Reviewing The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right a few months ago I noted that the key place that book lacked was in examples. As befits the work of the creators of a framework, it did very well at explaining the underlying philosophies and working through all manner of implementation details, but it wasn't the book for those who just want to dive in and build something. If that's how you like to use technical books, then Learning Website Development With Django may be more what you're looking for.

Following the iterative development of a delicious/digg hybrid social bookmarking application, Ayman Hourieh's book moves quickly through a range of Django features, from setting up your initial models, and using the built in user and admin sections, to supporting AJAX with jQuery, speeding up your app with caching and (briefly) writing automated tests. The pace is fairly measured and Ayman Hourieh does a good job of explaining what's going on at each step. An experienced web developer should find most of the information they need to get up and running with django, ready to get to work on their own apps.

Perhaps appropriately, where this book is lacking is in explaining how the different parts of the framework fit together. There's plenty you can pick up by inference, but there are no detailed explanations of, say, the routing system that maps URLs to code. This book's weaknesses are the former volumes strengths, and while you'll find much repeated between them a combination of the two is likely to be a good way to get a fully rounded sense of what django is and how you can use it.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for review by the publisher.

Learning Website Development with Django by Ayman Hourieh is a great introduction to application development with the Django web development framework.

The author covers a wide range of topics, leading you through installation of the framework and its basic usage. The pace of the book is brisk but not too fast, though you might want to have at least some experience with Python beforehand. (Which is fair, since Django is a Python framework!)

I really liked that the book has a running application that is being built as the chapters progress so you get an idea of how each concept presented fits into the overall structure of the application. It helps provide a context for why you are learning each chapter.

This book is not a reference, nor does it seem to be designed to be. (And it doesn't need to be; Django's documentation is some of the best I've ever seen in an open-source project) If you are just staring to work with Django, buy this book and Jacob and Adrian's 'The Definitive Guide to Django', which is also excellent.

If you already know or have worked with Django a little, you'll want to take a look at these sections that stood out above the rest:

User Registration and Management

Good coverage of the auth framework plus a very strong example of user registration; this topic comes up all the time in forums and blog comments. He shows how to do an "invite a friend" email registration system, complete with challenge verification.

Enhancing the User Interface with Ajax

The author presents the Ajax examples with jQuery and it's very approachable even if you haven't worked with that software. The chapter is meaty and thorough with examples of how to use jQuery's features such as event handling, DOM maninpulation, and accessing properties and attributes. He also provides examples of how to implement in-place editing, live search, and auto-complete.

Commenting

Good coverage of the comments framework; this is another area that isn't well-documented in the Django docs. (It's still evolving, so not a lot of time has been spent documenting it)

Internationalization (i18n)

Though not a long chapter, it's great to see coverage of the i18n system with a full example of how to set it up and deploy it.

Unit Testing

I enjoyed this section for two reasons: 1) The two examples provided were tests for the running app that is being built as the book progresses, so you understand the "why" behind the tests, and 2) It's great to see an author present unit testing as an important step for application development.

It's good to see this information in one place; you'd have to scour a lot of blog posts and code snippets to find all this material.

Clearly, Learning Website Development with Django was made with the understanding that the reader already has a fair familiarization of Python. The main programming language was just used in a backdrop and developers would just have to navigate through Python themselves.

With regards to Django, the writer has successfully shown on how to build a very robust application using only Django. Using additional functions such as jQuery and some commands from Ajax, a very powerful social bookmarking site is built.

However the book just focused on the development of the application. This would require the developers to follow the process one by one and end up with the same application. No diversity is given as developers would just have to stick with the process to the end.

Other topics that are not related to the development of the application are also discussed. Unfortunately, these are only discussed at the end of the book. The book could have discussed more on security. Only two chapters have brushed on the topics of security and they all talk about the problem on cross site scripting.

As we have previously indicated, take note of the administration function of Django. This chapter will help you speed up the process of development of your application.

In the end, this is still a remarkable book. By discussing the development of a single application, this book has virtually tackled almost every concern the developer has with regards to Django. This is a great reference book as it will aid you on how to manually code your application. From installation, configuration and implementation of the application, this book will show you how harness the power of Python and Django to build a very efficient application.

This book is intended for beginners, and it really works for its audience. You dive into building a social bookmarking app, adding users, tags, rss, friends, search, and more. Each of these is likely to be found (or desired) on a modern website, and the author shows the reader how to implement them... how to get things done. This book is low on theory, but high on real-world information, and it's recommended as such.

The book is really good in print form; I bought it originally as a paperback and learned quite a bit about Django from it. I decided recently to switch to using a Kindle, and bought this book as one of my initial kindle purchases because I refer to it so often during my Django development, which I am just getting into.

Problem is the source code listings are not at all properly formatted -- all code is left justified (at least on iPhone kindle reader, and the web-based cloud reader). If the code in the book were C++ where indentation doesn't matter, this would be something I could deal with, but with it being python (Django is a python-based framework), which relies on indentation heavily to denote block structure, it is quite impossible to read code listings in this book, so much so that I really can't recommend the kindle edition. By all means, buy the print copy, but until they fix the layout of code samples in this book, it's a pretty difficult task to read the code listings, and what good is a programming book if you can't read the source?

This is a great book for an intro to Django.
If you need to get up and running in Djago in 1-2 weeks and know nothing about it, this book is THE way to go. Fast-paced and not too deep, this is just what I needed.
The last chapter however leaves something to be desired. It is more like a fast-skip-along over all the things that are out there. Granted - helpful for general information, but it just does NOT work for me. After implementing my last chapter in the code - all of my application broke down. I feel that because the book skims over the topics so fast, it should not introduce advanced topics at all.

Also be aware that there are some differences between the book's trunk version of djano and the current trunk. For example there is no more clean_data, instead we use cleaned_data.

Overall, the book was just RIGHT for the me. Quick introduction to getting the web-framework up and running at the basic level. Must have first-book, for a once over read.

PS: Why, you might ask, I needed to learn Djano in 1-2 weeks? Because django is fun! Or a more realistic answer: I got tired of playing configuration games with php frameworks...

The book is aimed at web developers who are not looking to become experts in the framework, but just want to build a "2.0" web application quickly and painlessly. It is expected that they know some Python, but no great demands are placed on other previous knowledge.

Like most titles from Packt, the book wastes little time on introductions and quickly dives into the subject matter. The reader is put to work from the very beginning, and by page 20 Django is installed and the first project created and launched. I like this practical approach. All the code is available at the book's web site, so it's also easy to follow along.

The book is structured around the development of a social bookmarking application. Without going into too much detail, each chapter introduces the reader to some new Django concepts needed to build specific features into the application. For example, there are chapters focusing on user management, searching, Ajax and administration interfaces.

By the end of the book, the reader has a working application for storing and sharing bookmarks, complete with tags, tag clouds, RSS, Ajax bells and whistles, voting, friend networks and an administrative interface. She also should end up with a good knowledge of what Django can do and how to use its features. A couple of final chapters on deployment and future directions complete the tour and give the reader some insight on what to do next with her newly gained Django proficiency.

Overall, I think the author explains the concepts well enough and achieves his objective of teaching beginners how to build an application with Django. However, if you have a good knowledge of web development and Python, you may find that you need a deeper source of knowledge about Django as a framework.

At just over 200 pages and at a price tag of US $40, I find the book somewhat expensive, but it covers the ground it promises, so if you just want to quickly get going with your "web 2.0" application, the book could be worth the price.

This book is an excellent introduction to Django that goes far beyond any online tutorials. While its definitely a beginner's introduction, it covers complex enough topics that even an intermediate level Django user like myself still learns plenty.

Its my first Django book, so its just nice to have a "best practices" reference when doing common tasks like handling ManyToMany relationships, voting, caching, etc.

There are a fair number of typos/misprints which are just a pet peeve. I enjoy the author's succinct writing style, although at times he pulls the "And in the next paragraph I'm going to cover X." Just cover X! Luckily he's usually quite succinct, so its just me being picky. ;-)

Full Disclosure: I got a review copy for free. The $40 list price on the back of the book seems a bit steep for such a thin tome, but it would probably be worth it for beginners who want to learn Django fast.

The Django web framework is one of the rising stars in the world of web frameworks. The combination of an object relational mapper, template system, automatic admin system and elegant URL design make Django a web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.
The latest Django related book from Packt Publishing 'Learning Website Development with Django' by Ayman Hourieh is the perfect introduction into website development using the Django framework.
In twelve easy to read chapters the author teaches you the basics of the Django framework using a social bookmarking website as an example. As an added bonus you'll see how to implement some interesting Web 2.0 features such as tagging, voting and AJAX.
The book is well written and the author has a good grasp of the possibilities of the Django framework. While the book is intended as an introduction into Django and website development, the author doesn't hide the more complex features from the reader.
Learning Website Development with Django is an excellent introduction into the Django framework and dynamic website development in general. Whether you are taking your first steps into website development or you're a seasoned PHP veteran who would like to know more about this excellent web framework, this book will give you an excellent start in the world of Django.