Practical Django Projects (Expert's Voice in Web Development) [Paperback]

James Bennett (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590599969 | ISBN-13: 978-1590599969 | Publication Date: June 26, 2008 | Edition: 1

Build a Django content management system, blog, and social networking site with James Bennett as he introduces the popular Django framework. You’ll work through the development of each project, implementing and running the applications while learning new features along the way.

Web frameworks are playing a major role in the creation of today’s most compelling web applications, because they automate many of the tedious tasks, allowing developers to instead focus on providing users with creative and powerful features. Python developers have been particularly fortunate in this area, having been able to take advantage of Django, a very popular open source web framework whose stated goal is to “make it easier to build better web applications more quickly with less code.”

Practical Django Projects is the first book to introduce this popular framework by way of a series of real–world projects.

What you’ll learn

• Capitalize upon Django’s well–defined framework architecture to build web applications faster than ever before
• Learn by doing by working through the creation of three real–world projects, including a content management system, blog, and social networking site
• Build user–friendly web sites with well–structured URLs, session tracking, and syndication options
• Let Django handle tedious tasks such as database interaction while you focus on building compelling applications

Who this book is for

Web developers seeking to use the powerful Django framework to build powerful web sites.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Bennett is a web developer for the World Company of Lawrence, Kansas, and is a major contributor to the Django project. His current role within the Django community is as the software project's release manager.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (June 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590599969
• ISBN-13: 978-1590599969
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wait for the next edition of this book, August 11, 2008

By 

Rob (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practical Django Projects (Expert's Voice in Web Development) (Paperback)

This book is a solid, practically-oriented introduction to Django, but be warned: the code in the book fails with Django 1.0. This is an important caveat because you cannot progress through the exercises unless you know the gotchas and how to modify the code accordingly. Some of the incompatibilities are quite major.

I found that the book pitches a bit low for an experienced developers and it's thin on discussion of the meat of what's going on under the hood. A minor issue with the book is the author's insistence on "admonishing" you literally every second page. You see, calling things "admonitions" one of the secret signs that Python nerds use to show that they're part of that very special little gang of elite hardcore "Pythonistas". For the rest of us, it's just grating (or maybe I'm just not dope enough to be a Pythonista, yo. Y'know what I'm saying, bro? Word.)

Issues aside, I do like its very hands-on approach and I'm betting that the next edition will be a 4.5 star book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but poorly timed, August 14, 2008

By 

Justin Lilly (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Django Projects (Expert's Voice in Web Development) (Paperback)

This book is a great book. 2 nits. One big, one small.

Nit #1: "Admonitions" seems a bit contrived.

Nit #2: This book should have either been released earlier or released 3 months later. The game is changing with 1.0 and all previous books will require fixes and updates to work. This increases the barrier to entry for newbies and should be rectified as soon as possible.

[Update: Word is there will be a hg repo for updated code samples. Now retracting Nit #2]

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for Beginners, August 26, 2008

By 

Ms. Jenifer Hanen (Orange, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Django Projects (Expert's Voice in Web Development) (Paperback)

Another reviewer noted that this was the perfect book for beginners/newbies. It is not. As stated in the book and on the back cover, it is for intermediate folk.

The book makes quite a few assumptions about the reader's level of Django and development experience, as a result it can be a very frustrating experience for a beginner.

Please also note, as other reviewers have noted, that the book's code examples are for Django .9x (update: written for 0.96) and not for 1.0. Apress, the publisher, has not given any updates to the errata nor do they have the book's source code posted. So, if you are not an intermediate python programmer or an intermediate Django developer, you may find yourself throwing this book or your computer in frustration.

Other than that, if I could just figure out which version of Django it is written for, I would love this book.