Python Django

What is Django?

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. When you’re building a website, you always need a similar set of components: a way to handle user authentication (signing up, signing in, signing out), a management panel for your website, forms, a way to upload files, etc. Python Django takes care of the repetitive work for you so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel all over again.

Lets install Django

You can install Django using

For other ways of installation, visit this.

Let’s get started

Since this is the first time we are using Django there is some  initial setup to do. We need to auto generate some code that establishes  the Django project.

From the command line,

This will create a folder ‘mysite ‘ in your current directory. Do avoid python names of different functionalities as names for the folder. Ex. Django and test are not good choices since they create conflict on calling.

Also, with Django you do not put your code under your web server’s root directory. We always place it outside.

Let’s look at what startproject created:

mysite/

manage.py

mysite/

__init__.py

settings.py

urls.py

wsgi.py

These files are:

• The outer mysite/ root directory is just a container for your project. Its name doesn’t matter to Django; you can rename it to anything you like.
• py: A command-line utility that lets you interact with this Django project in various ways. You can read all the details about manage.py in django-admin and manage.py.
• The inner mysite/ directory is the actual Python package for your project. Its name is the Python package name you’ll need to use to import anything inside it (e.g. urls).
• mysite/__init__.py: An empty file that tells Python that this directory should be considered a Python package. If you’re a Python beginner, read more about packages in the official Python docs.
• mysite/settings.py: Settings/configuration for this Django project. Django settings will tell you all about how settings work.
• mysite/urls.py: The URL declarations for this Django project; a “table of contents” of your Django-powered site. You can read more about URLs in URL dispatcher.
• mysite/wsgi.py: An entry-point for WSGI-compatible web servers to serve your project. See How to deploy with WSGI for more details.

Let’s verify whether our Django works.

You can safely ignore the warning for now.

Yipppe! We  have started the Django server! Let’s go see how it looks like.

Note This is only for studying. When it  comes to production setting, use Apache servers or similar.

By default the port is 8000. But you can change it using the command line. Say you want to change it to 8080

Full docs for the development server can be found in the runserver reference

But why Python Django?

• It’s the best choice for quick web development
• Transparent and clean code.
• Fewer lines of code
• Saves time and money on development
• works well with high loads

Why not Django?

1. Doesn’t support real-time applications
2. Broad knowledge of the system is required
3. ORM is very monolithic compared to SQLAlchemy.

To know how to edit and configure your webpages, check out https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/intro/tutorial01/

For more details visit,

https://www.djangoproject.com/

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/#index-first-steps

https://www.djangoproject.com/start/

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/

https://tutorial.djangogirls.org/en/django_start_project/