Alexander T. Esplin said
This book is quite a good introduction to Python/Django web development, but not necessarily an in-depth one. It was, however, more than enough to sway my decision of what web framework to learn over to Django from Rails.
The first section, which is an introduction to Python, is good enough that even though I'm not a total stranger to Python I found some good insights and information on the language itself.
The second section, which is an overview of the framework in general, was not quite so good. Granted, I'm not much of a web developer, which is why I read this book, but I felt a little bit uncertain about the "how" details of the framework. This section could have easily been significantly longer and more detailed with no complaints from me.
The third section, which is a group of tutorials/sample projects for various things you'd use a web framework for, was pretty good again. The sample projects are by no means feature/polish complete, but are more than enough to make a good start at any of the respective types of sites represented.
In all, the book gets 4 stars because the first and last sections, while very good, don't completely make up for the failings of the middle section. A few more pages for each of the main topics would have gone a long way for people like me who like to know how things work, without making the book excessively long.
S. Taylor said
Coming from a PHP background, I decided to take on a more serious development language for my future web projects. I picked Python and Django.
This book covers basic Python first. So it's not necessary to learn Python from a dedicated book. The primer in this book is adequate. And the online documentation is great to fill in the spaces as needed.
The thing I like most about the book is that it covers a tremendous amount of ground. The example projects use advanced functions and structures that other books avoid, and the coding structures can be complex and deep. DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) is a core philosophy in Python and in Django. These authors do a great job keeping the code DRY. And that often means building elegant, but hard to understand code.
The thing I don't like about the book is related to what I think makes it so good. It's damn complex at times.
Often while trying to work through some code examples and reproduce the results, I find that I don't understand the structure of something. I'll end up spending 10 minutes or a few hours consulting the online docs learning the new functions and trying to understand some structure that is outlined in the book.
The book isn't very long for all the content that's packed inside. And that's mostly due to the fact that the authors have left out explanations for a lot of what is going on behind the scenes in their more complex bits of code.
Django is a pretty deeply nested framework (in my limited experience). When you call on an object, it might be a subclass of a subclass of another subclass that inherited from two other classes, one of which is a subclass of another. So, to really understand what an object is like can be complicated. The same goes for functions.
Django is similar in the way an application uses a lot of different files through multiple imports to pull together even the simplest of views.
If you are coming from working with Python or C or Perl or something else where you spend a lot of time on the command line and OOP is second nature to you, this book will probably be easy to work through. If you are just using PHP or ASP, get ready for a major learning curve. And maybe just consider looking at the other Django books instead.
One other benefit to this book over others is that it's relatively new and incorporates some of the bigger changes that were made in version 1.0 of Django. This can save you some time trying to figure out why the code examples don't work if you use the older books with the newer release of Django.
Flubba said
Fairly thorough introduction to Django. The examples were poor, all being the same thing with a slight variation. Also, they all used generic views. If you have read any Django tutorials online, you will not learn anything from this book.
A. Nelson said
I looked at all the available Django 1.0 books and this one appeared the best. I've read about half of it now and it's really well written and informative. The method is very good for intermediate developers from other languages. If you're a total beginner to web development, you might want to get an HTML/CSS book and read that first. In this book, there are basic presumptions (i.e. that 404 is the error code for URL not found) that are easy for those who know and not intuitive for those who don't.
With that said, Django is a fantastic framework for the beginner even though it's more complex.
Adam Barrett said
Frameworks and patterns are really becoming strong fixtures of the web development community. They are giving developers the ability to do more and do it faster. Django is a great example of a framework that is enabling developers to developer faster. I just a few lines of code you can create a blog (Chapter 2), a photo gallery (Chapter 7) or a content management system (Chapter 8). Where Django is a quick way to learn Python and create great applications, Python Web Development with Django (the book) is a great way to learn Django.
The first chapter is a great quickie on what Python is and about the parts of Python. It's a quick explanation of variables, tuples, lists, and more. The subsequent chapters walk you through all the inner workings of Django.
Jeff Forcier, Paul Bissex, and Wesley Chun really give you a great book, and plenty of great examples of what Django can do. In detail you are shown, explained what each part of Django you are working with is for, and the secrets to it's inner part. Often you are given options and directions on how to expand and change your application.
Probably the sweetest parts of this book is the appendix on Google App Engine. GAE allows the use of Django, and this appendix explains what it takes to add that to the mix so your app can move seamlessly into the cloud with Google App Engine.
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