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Comment by michaelpb | Hacker News Reader

This is just a personal preference. I would say the same about Python / Django: You get extensible login/signup/password-reset/etc authentication & user-permissions management, and even an admin interface with user groups, right out of the box. I can put together a web app in "60 seconds" that would take weeks to assemble using the JavaScript ecosystem. Having taught classes on both, I'd also say it's also easier for beginners. Again, might be my own bias or other factors, but it seemed to me that the Python/Django student's final projects have on average "out-shown" the JavaScript SPA student's final projects in terms of features that they had time to complete.

This isn't to hate on JS, this is just to acknowledge that other languages and frameworks have substantial advantages in many use-cases.

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Django's user system is .. limited. You need a bunch of third party libraries to add very commonly used things such as auth APIs, oauth, 2fa, etc.

I've worked with Django for over a decade and i dislike it more and more. It hasn't evolved to match the environment around it and how to best use it. Typing is missing. Something like FastAPI is very promising but Django's admin is still superb for prototyping and its orm is a lot more instinctive so i put off switching away ...

Agreed, it definitely is limited. Also the admin panel is limited too, and although it's very extendable, the admin extension API is kind of clunky and inconsistent at times. Yeah FastAPI looks great! I've used Sanic in the past and FastAPI seems cool for some of the same reasons. I'm also following closely Django Hotwire - https://hotwire.dev/

I only brought up Django in a narrow context to challenge an assumption made by the post I was replying to, that seemed to imply that JavaScript ecosystem is indisputably the fastest for rapid prototyping. Hence my providing of a counter-example. I think this is especially true for new coders, as having certain things out of the way is super vital to keep motivated when building MVPs -- I've seen many students give up on ideas simply because implementing authentication with a Node.js-based stack was too challenging, when they would have been happily coding away had we been teaching a batteries-included framework (django / rails / etc).

Funny you should mention that, I'm watching that too, and I can't wait until that's to the point where it's just as easy and seamless to get something up and running in django or a similar framework, while also having all the advantages of a frontend application and a backend one. Hotwire does look very intriguing to me.

I think overall we need a new wave of backend frameworks with what we've learned in the past decade. I'm hoping it's in python or clojure, but my guess is it's going to be in javascript (see react server components for one potential contender).

I've been in the NextJS world lately and it's honestly gotten really good. Nowhere near perfect yet but they are clearly on the right track and it's already more than usable.

NextJS+Django is my current stack of choice.

Last time I hanged around #django, they said admin pages are for prototyping and technical admins only. Admin is not meant to be extensible. For true power without issues, you should roll your own CRUD views. Django has features which make it easier, such as viewsets.

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