Like the authors of the many excellent resources available to the Django developer (
djangoproject.com documentation to name but one), James is a respectful, trusted guide. As other reviews internet-wide have indicated, the code examples are dated (pre 1.0), but are truly practical. Looking forward to Second Ed. Next week?
This book would be perfect for someone getting started with Django, especially if they also read the Definitive Guide To Django. Beginners will get the most out of it, though intermediate users will probably glean some good information from it as well. And if you've never seen/read one of James' presentations on reusable apps, the final chapter is a must-read.
James has done an excellent job of showing how to go about developing Django applications. If you work through the examples, you build the core of two of James' more prominent apps/projects (Cab & Djangosnippets). These were good choices because they take you through a wider variety of functionality that the typical "build-a-blog-in-5-minutes" app or the classic Polls example.
I would recommend that anyone who's new hold off for the second edition (which is due out shortly). It will be written for the current version of Django (1.0+) and, if I remember right, there are a couple extra chapters with more goodness planned. All in all, the book was well-written, clear and a balanced read.