Og Maciel said
If you're new to Django and want to learn quickly how to use this powerful framework or, if you're like me and want to get your hands dirty on a small project to get you up to speed, then this is the book you should buy! Let me say this again so not to leave any room for doubts: I am wholeheartedly recommending this book!
I wish more books were written like "Django 1.0 Website Development": You start off with an idea for a full blown project and as you progress through the chapters, you build this project from scratch to its completeness! This is not a reference book and you should already know what Django is, etc, etc.
Each chapter builds onto the next one, giving you a full sense of developing a web application from the ground up, all the while learning some cool techniques such as adding AJAX-y effects and doing in-place searches and editing of information.
By the time you're done with it, you will wish this book had more than 12 chapters!
Andrei Mouravski said
"Django 1.0 Web Site Development" by Ayman Hourieh is a great
introduction to those, who already have a basic understanding of the
python language, and want to learn how to build web 2.0 applications
quickly using the Django framework.
The book gradually shows you all the specialties of the Django
framework by guiding the reader through the process of creating a web
application for them to keep track of and share their bookmarks. As
new features are taught, the web application grows to the level of
modern social networking sites.
The first half of the book introduces the developer to the basics of
model, template, and view framework and the basics of databases. The
author keeps the code clean and easy to pick up, with line by line
examples and explanations. Administration and user controls are
covered to the point where the reader can create a fully functioning
web application.
The second half of the book introduces the reader to other frameworks
and languages that can be tied into Django to improve the look of the
web application previously created. The foundations of jQuery, CSS,
AJAX, and search functions are given along with sites that will go
more in depth to create a user friendly site.
I would recommend this book to those who know the basics of python and
are looking for an introduction to web applications. The author could
have talked more about the different types of applications that it
could be used for, but it is still worth the read.
M. Morgan said
this book is tremendous.
he built a very nice, working application.
he structured the book around development of the various functional elements of the website.
he explains his code well.
he brings in some very practical javascript that really enhances functionality.
all of this can probably be translated to your social app with voting, tagging, and commenting
I found this book at a critical time in my project and it has saved me.
here the focus is on functionality. some other books take precedence of form to the extreme which may not be great when you're hurrying to develop an application (I could be wrong).
it deserves 6 stars. we need to keep this guy writing books on Django!
Randall Degges said
Let me preface this review by saying that I'm a professional software developer. I work for a mid-size communications company, and one of my tasks over the past 6 months has been investigating new web technologies to help us develop more modern, best-practices web applications.
I started messing around with Django around 5 months ago, by reading the official website documentation and the online Django book (which were both great resources), but I felt that what was lacking from my experiences was a complete, best-practices walk through of building a full website with Django. As I'm sure most of you know, the best way to get comfortable with a new technology is to use it to build something. This is when I started checking out other Django books on Amazon and came across this one.
This book walks you through building a complete social bookmarking site (similar to [...]) from scratch. The author does an amazing job of introducing you to Django and starts with the basics, working up to more and more complex things. I was surprised how well this book was written, and how easy it was to understand the code and explanations without much thinking. By Chapter 4 (45 pages in) you've already implemented a full user authentication system and user portal. You're able to display bookmarks, and much more. The author is not long-winded, and his writing style reminds me in many ways of Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan (authors of the infamous book: 'The C Programming Language').
As to what the book covers, it walks you through everything from the installation of Django to depolying Django on production servers once the site has been finished. It does an excellent job of discussing useful deployment techniques including caching, in only a few lines of code. Furthermore, the author will show you how to add ajax effects to your website to increase usability, using the jQuery framework (an incredibly popular and powerful javascript framework). It even covers usage of some jQuery plugins (like live searching of content).
I frequently use this book as a reference guide (the cover is beginning to wear out) as the examples are really easy to navigate, and the descriptions are verbose.
Overall, I'd say this book is a must read for any Django developer who wants to really grasp the inner workings of the Django framework. It's easy to read, very concise, and filled with useful, best-practices information that you will not want to miss.
J. A. Griffiths said
For a while now I've been itching to try out Django, it's one awesomely powerful framework, simple and elegant. So thanks to a good friend, Ayman Hourieh sent me a copy of his recent book "Django 1.0 Web Site Development" to review and boy is it a cracking read.
Unlike some other books I've read he doesn't try to tackle all the bases at once and then put together the pieces afterwards, he sets out a clearly defined roadmap at the start and builds upon each chapter as you progress; reinforcing what you've learnt with quick review sessions at the end of each chapter.
Starting small he introduces you to the world of Python, it's origins and how & why the Django framework was created. Ayman then runs you through a couple of example lessons to gain your experience with it's fundamentals. This is important as it increases your confidence with the framework and settles you into progressing more, and not pushing you too far too soon. Let's face it with anything new confidence is a big factor and it's important to not try to do too much or embellish too far with details that are little use, and Ayman nails it.
Python is one of those languages, like Ruby or PHP, that doesn't restrict you to a specific o/s and right away he shows you how easy it is to install and setup on Linux / OSX or Windows; you've got to love things like that, good stuff.
Once done we setup Django, create our first "hello world" project and then review what we've learnt before continuing. Next we go ahead and build a simple social bookmarking application (think of a simple Del.icio.us), we learn about Templates and building up our Database Schema; summarising as we progress.
Next up we handle User Registration. Django comes with a set of default packages which each provide a specific form of functionality to your app, authentication and user management is baked in, others like tagging can be installed as required; it's up to you to decide how you use them.
He bases each chapter on real-world processes, securing your app, tagging, expanding the data schema and adding AJAX functionality with the awesomely powerful jQuery framework. Building on social networking concepts he shows you how to add voting, sharing bookmarks between users and allowing those users to comment on each others posts; before you know it you've got a pretty sterling app going.
Next we delve inside Django's built-in administration interface, restricting users, group permissions and crafting the interface more to your application's liking.
We then look at advanced searching and adding RSS news feeds to our application, binding those to our users so each one has their own channel. By using Django's Q objects you can quickly gain a solid understanding of it's Database API and Ayman's examples are pretty easy to follow here.
Once we've built a friendship model and an email system, Ayman shows us how to bake in internationalization. This is not a new concept if you've used other frameworks like Rails or CodeIgniter, but he lays it out so easily that the task of translating the phrases is the only headache you get; and being agile we don't get past deployment without putting together some fixtures and automated tests so we have confidence in what we're giving the public.
All in all, for $39.99 (24 quid), you get an easy to understand roadmap that teaches you a good set of fundamentals and takes you from a basic app to something really powerful. At a stretch you could probably complete the app in a week, after which Ayman gives some decent pointers for how to improve it. Weighing in at 250 pages it's perfectly balanced to give you the proper start in this awesome framework.
Great stuff, well recommended
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