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?
It's pretty outdated by now, so you'll likely spend more time checking the differences (i.e. class based views).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...
The amazon book looks outdated and I am a bit surprised by the lack of django 1.4 learning material for newcomers to the framework as this is key for it's popularity.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The problem with print books is that they fall out of date so quickly.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.