In the last 3 pages I've: easy_installed [thing with a slightly queasy name like 'yuk' that I can't remember] to check the state of all my Python packages, wondered why Python (me? 2.6) only sometimes needs a blank line between two statements (after syncdb failed until I added one), written two further blog posts on the errr.. blog we're building, scribbled pencil annotations on all 3 pages, re-ordered my fields in the admin, put all the help text in variables (I do not like long strings messing up my nice tidy model fields) and tested out PyDelicious (the description didn't appear and I had to sign in to Delicious first). It's been like that since I started the book (I'm an obsessive learner-by-tinkering). Only 217 more pages to go.

• Reply

After a massive diversion where I encountered a bug in South's interaction with Django (I wanted to add a 'modified' date field to Coltrane) I posted to the South mailing list. Andrew Godwin made a revised version available from trunk, so I wrote up a simple-as-possible-migration South migration and I'm now back into the book. Also, having read a lot about deployment I took in Bennett's post Let’s talk about WSGI and am pondering the options. Deployment is such a hurdle if you haven't done it yet, and not a smooth passage. There has to be a way to make it easier (I always think that).

• Reply

After understanding the basic concepts of Django (which if you don't I don't recommend this book), this book is the foundation.

Not only does it teach you reasonable ways to solve common problems, and material not in the manual but adapted by the community, but it does an excellent job of explaining each concept and walking you through the process.

If you've done a basic Django this is an excellent way to further your knowledge, and even take care of things like setup, distribution.

I highly recommend it (if you've built a basic Django app)

• Reply
• Review

This book has been my constant 'determined to get Django under my belt' companion since I bought it. The reason I haven't finished it is that I'm side-reading lots of other material, messing with the code (e.g. using git to track changes locally, just installed South to add a 'modified' field to the 'Entry' model...), and also writing up my Django learning curve by using the actual blog built from the book. I've read it all now, but page 77 is where I am in my progress through the projects.

• Reply
• Review