Things I wish I'd known about Django

Talk I gave at July's (2015) London Django Meetup. See https://github.com/djangolondon/The-London-Django-Meetup-Group/blob/master/meetups/2015-07-14.md

Transcript

1. Things I wish I’d
   known about Django
   A talk all about me (sorry)
   James Cooke // The London Django Meetup
   

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2. About me
   ● Backend developer
   ● Accidental web dev:
   o Five years of PHP
   o Four years of Piotr saying “check out Django”
   o Client driven dev
   o Learning / experimentation debt
   ● Django was my first experience of Python
   

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3. Better Python > Better Django
   ● “Magic” Django functions are just powerful
   Python features.
   ● Accessors, decorators, comprehensions and
   generators.
   

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4. Deployment isn’t `scp`
   ● Non-trivial deployment. File-orientated is
   not enough.
   ● modpython support deprecated when I
   started.
   ● WSGI needs some workers - you’re a
   devops now :D
   

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5. Django’s not rails
   Adjusting how your Django install works is
   standard and expected. e.g:
   ● Use other libraries.
   ● Extend ORM / object managers.
   ● Templating.
   ● Class based views.
   

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6. Django lets me screw up my data
   `Model.save != Model.full_clean`
   Many routes data can take into DB:
   ● Form validation in view
   ● View code building objects
   ● Data migrations
   ● Ad hoc queries in shell.
   

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7. Point five
   `from django.test import TestCase`
   

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8. Community
   If I’d know it was this good I’d have been here
   sooner:
   ● Great plugins / tools: South, Mezzanine /
   CMS, caches, integrations.
   ● High quality community answers
   ● Generally built on strong Python
   community (I think)
   

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9. Summary
   ● If you’re new: Jump in (sooner)
   ● If you’re here now: Don’t fear the magic (use
   the source)
   ● If you’re pro: Spread the word :D
   Thanks… got questions?
   @jamesfublo
   

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