...is it just me, or Django docs are WAY more to the point than all the rails screencasts and tutorials? I wonder if this extends to the whole Django vs Rails way of doing things in general, not just to documentation...
This is exactly why I'm going with Django for my project. The Django book that is online is just so straightforward and easy to understand. With Rails I have not found that to be the case at all.
Have you found anything truly "enlightening" in the Django Book (like actually helping you to make a mental model of something or teaching you a better way to do things) that would make it worth checking out after initially "skipping" it?
(I actually went from the tutorial to specific parts of the docs and then to actually digging through the code of some os projects like django-cms, bypassing the Django Book altogether and learning things by reading the docs while actually doing client work ...after "lying" that I actually knew more about Django than I did ...but it all worked out magically alright, ahead of time and in the budget :) ...and this is what really made me feel good about D and made me eager to digg deeper and maybe even contribute to it sometime)
Some advice that saved me hours: use Vagrant to manage a linux-based VM. Share the Django code directory with your Host OS. You're going to eventually deploy to Linux anyway. (I had a LOT of issues trying to get Postgresql to install on OS X via Homebrew, etc, and it still wasn't a proper environment). Once I went with Vagrant and an Ubuntu VM, things smoothed out.
+1 for the django.me tip. I can see myself using it all the time from now on :-) Out of curiosity, how and where did you find out about it? http://django.me redirects to the main page of django docs and google search didn't give any useful info.
It's getting a little out of date, what with Django 1.4 and django-registration 0.8, but nothing that can't be upgraded without too much hassle.
#django on Freenode is also invaluable.
You can also search inside the Django documentation with "!django", if DDG is your default search engine.
I also recommend checking out dotCloud (YC) instead of Heroku, as it's much easier to set up for beginners. Just download the wsgi.py and make the necessary changes to your settings.py, and Bob's your uncle.
Awesome, thanks for this. I've been learning Django in my spare time and using the Django Book resource, and while I can work through it I don't think it's taught in a way that helped me remember how to do any of it without the book. Is that common? I am assuming that the only way you learn how to set up an environment or a Django project is just through doing it multiple times, not memorizing it out of a book. For example, the next time I start a project, I know I'll have to refer back to how to start the whole process.
I was in the same shoes as you. After going through the tutorial, I didn't feel confident that I could set up another project and configure the required settings without referring to the guide.
It will get better once you embark on your second or third project. You will be able to refer back to your earlier projects (instead of the guide) and see what steps you have missed out.
I'm learning Django (and Python) now, a big +1 for the official tutorial being the best first place to start. It walks you through setting up your environment, working with the terminal and a cool little project setting up your first app that quickly and clearly shows you all sorts of cool things Django can do.
I took me about 10 hours from start to finish with probably half of that devoted to getting my environment setup. I learned a ton and not just about Django.
If you have experience with Python and/or working with the terminal it should be much faster, but you'll still probably learn a lot.
#django IRC channel is another resource I'd highly recommend, especially when you get stuck. Those guys are super, super helpful.
