Django: Web Development with Python

by Samuel Dauzon, Aidas Bendoraitis, Arun Ravindran

Web developers who want to use modern Python-based web frameworks like Django to build powerful web applications. The course is mostly self-contained and introduces web development with Python to a reader who is familiar with web development concepts and can help him become an expert in this trade. It's intended for all levels of web developers, both students and practitioners from novice to experts. Data science is hot right now, and the need for multitalented developers is greater than ever before. A basic grounding in building apps with a framework as minimalistic, powerful, and easy-to-learn as Django will be a useful skill when launching your career as an entrepreneur or web developer. Django is a web framework that was designed to strike a balance between rapid web development and high performance. This course will take you on a journey to become an efficient web developer who thoroughly understands the key concepts of the Django framework. The first module, Django Essentials, is a practical guide, filled with many real-world examples to build highly effective Django web applications. In the second module, Web Development with Django Cookbook, you'll learn varying complexities to help you create multilingual, responsive, and scalable websites with Django. The next step is to discover the latest best practices and idioms in the rapidly evolving Django framework. This is what you'll be learning in our third module, Django Design Patterns and Best Practices. By the end of the module, you will be able to leverage the Django framework to develop a fully functional web application with minimal effort.

730 pages, Paperback

Published August 31, 2016

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the book being published in 2017, it's using old versions of Django (v 1.6 from mid 2013, the current version is 2.0, December 2017) which means you have to look up the correct syntax, and make sure that way of doing things hasn't changed, before you copy any of the code.

It seems like 3 randomly thrown together "Modules", that are not even using the same version of Python or Django, and not working on the same project either.

It does explain the concepts and how to do things in Django reasonably well, but you can get a pretty good explanation from the official docs and tutorial too. And those are free where this book is way too expensive for what it offers.

I've got a small pile of Django books to go through, and will edit this review to recommend a replacement when I find something better.

[Chaitat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cons: Too many typos and bad practices.

Pros: I find it is quite easy to understand the examples in this book. I think it is because the author shows small but complete code to demonstrate his examples so I can easily follow what he is trying to explain.

In summary, it is like a quick online tutorial with examples which contain a number of errors which could easily lead newcomers to misunderstand how the web app works and how one should administer a linux machine.