The Django Book is getting updated | Hacker News Reader

The Django Book is getting updated

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158 pointstangue27 comments

... but it needs help

It is good to see the book is still alive.

Django is one of the best documented projects I have ever seen. But I know people who have problems with the way the documentation is structured. For some parts you have to understand a completely different part of the framework to follow the documentation. This is to some degree a price you have to pay for a complex framework and is IMHO fine.

But especially for those people is a book, which gives a structured way through the whole framework, a great thing.

I like the django documentation but sometimes I find it hard to figure out how to do exactly what I want to do ... the source code however is pretty readable, effectively it is cross referenced since you can look at the imports, and on github you can find the tag for the version you're using and browse it online.

For example, I recently re-did the login and password management pages for a site and I found it easier to just look at contrib/auth/views.py , especially since all the views are heavily parameterized, and it is only ~250 LOC: https://github.com/django/django/blob/ff6ee5f06c2850f098863d...

I don't think that's a problem to be solved by the core documentation - rather it's the role that tutorials, howto's etc solve - taking you from 'what' to 'how'.

Maybe the Django docs should guide people to a few more of these before hitting them with the authoritative docs.

A tutorial and a book solve completely different problems. A tutorial will only help you if you know what you want to achieve, and can therefore search for the tutorial. You read a book to find out about functionality you didn't know was there, lest you need it in the future.

An organized approach to "here are all the things we do" is definitely appropriate for the core documentation.

For those looking for recent Django screencasts, Buddy Lindsey did a bunch at this site GoDjango:

http://godjango.com

He covered a lot of stuff including Forms, Formsets, Social Authentication and Generic Class Based Views.

I just started learning Django(going through the tutorial today).

Is the Django Book ready to use as it is to learn Django? The Django docs I think are not enough for someone starting out learning their first web framework(they seem to go deep right away and don't provide a structured way of learning).

Also are the changes done on Github published on the book website or better to grab it directly from Github?

> Is the Django Book ready to use as it is to learn Django? The Django docs I think are not enough for someone starting out learning their first web framework(they seem to go deep right away and don't provide a structured way of learning).

It's pretty outdated by now, so you'll likely spend more time checking the differences (i.e. class based views). Same goes for Practical Django Projects[3].

You're best off looking at some online tutorials, another Django Book[1], or thinking of something to build and approaching it from scratch. Django's docs are very good, and there's a lot of open source projects out there that have likely accomplished something similar.

PS: I'm disappointed Reinout van Rees book was canned[2]

[1]: https://github.com/mariuz/django-book [2]: http://reinout.vanrees.org/weblog/2012/05/23/djangobook-schl... [3]: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Django-Projects-Experts-Deve...

Thanks for the django-book updated link. This seem to be exactly the scope of the linked github in the op.

The amazon book looks outdated and I am a bit surprised by the lack of django 1.4 learning material for newcomers to the framework as this is key for it's popularity.

I hope the linked updated django-book will provide enough teaching to get me up and running and be able to mainly use the django docs after.

> The amazon book looks outdated and I am a bit surprised by the lack of django 1.4 learning material for newcomers to the framework as this is key for it's popularity.

The problem with print books is that they fall out of date so quickly. Rails has the same problem--perhaps even more so due to the rapid development pace.

I was really looking forward to the Prag Prog Django book, as they usually release updates and revise the eBook editions, so it's a shame the deal fell apart.

Ebooks are just great when learning especially on dual screen setups. AFAK Rails books get updated really fast - and there are at least a few good introductory courses. There is a Django video series coming but who can wait untill December :)

http://gettingstartedwithdjango.com

Even for a beginner Django docs are the best resource you can find for Django. It is one of the best documentation you'll find for an open source project imho.

I wish Django and other Python Web Frameworks had a great (and updated) tutorial as Rails has: http://ruby.railstutorial.org/

The Django tutorial is part of the official documentation and is kept up to date with the rest of the framework: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/

The Django tutorial just doesn't have the depth that the rails book does in my opinion. Though, it's well written and awesome in it's own way. There is also a lot of other well written guides on the rails main site[1]

[1] http://rubyonrails.org/documentation

Following another user advice in the thread I started learning using the updated django book and I must say is great so far( I am at chapter 3). I have previosuly looked over the rails book and this is better for a newcomer.

https://github.com/mariuz/django-book

I read this book when it had side comments - they were fantastic help

Let's be plain: it was the only way to get the code examples to work. ;)

well, to put it a different way, it allowed those working through the book to make small updates to compensate for django updates :)

Kenneth Love also has a screencast series coming out soon: https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2012/sep/11/dsf-support....

I'm Alex Dzul, From Mexico.

I'm Django Web Developer. I have a Youtube Channel where I explain this framework in Spanish ( my native language) http://www.youtube.com/user/alexexc2

I would like to participate in this update of the Django Book :)

I completely dismissed the django book for being outdated when starting to lear Django, despite people recommending it to me ...nice to know others won't have to dismiss it the same way as some chapters seemed really well written

What happened to the commenting system? I found that to be useful for annotations

This is fantastic. It was - and actually still is - the single-best resource for learning Django. Unlike all other guides, it managed to explain why Django was written the way it was.

Will it be geared towards Django operating on Python 3? Or will that subject be treated lightly?

Python 3 support was --last I heard-- still considered experimental/alpha by the core team in the upcoming Django 1.5 release, so I would assume if it treats it at all, it will be mostly to encourage forward-compatible programming practices.

finally, i was getting tired of people recommending this old dinosaur.The django community is active enough to contribute to this wonderful resource.

little hype around django, but still is popular

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