Django 1.0 Template Development Book Review

Packt Publishing was nice enough to send us a copy of Django 1.0 Template Development by Scott Newman for review recently. I get most of my technical information via the web, so picking up a technical book was a nice change of pace. This is a well written and enjoyable read for people looking to learn a little more about Django than what is provided in the Django tutorial.

Based on the title, I expected a thorough write-up of the template system for front-end developers. With the way Django was designed, template developers need little, if any, knowledge of Python and what goes on under the hood with Django requests. I was surprised, however, to see that pure front-end (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) developers were not the target audience of this book:

This book is for web developers and template authors who want to fully understand and utilize the Django template system. The reader should have completed the introductory tutorials on the Django project’s website and some experience with the framework will be very helpful. Basic knowledge of Python and HTML is assumed.

So, if you just want to work with Django templates, you may find this book to be a bit more than you bargained for. There is a fair amount of Python code throughout the book, although they’ve done a good job of keeping it very basic.

In addition to templates, the topics covered include:

  • Django’s request handling process
  • generic views
  • writing custom tags and filters
  • pagination
  • customizing the admin
  • caching
  • internationalization

I’d say this book is a great resource for jack-of-all-trade developers that write both back-end and front-end code. If you are looking to switch to Django from PHP or some other language, this (and Dive Into Python) would be helpful books to have on your shelf.

Comments

  • October 15, 2009 at 7:29 p.m. #
    brisbane mentioned:

    Great book!
    Wish I could get one copy.

Got something to say?





About Lincoln Loop | Our Team | Portfolio

This was written on October, 15 2009 and is filed in django, review.

Our Products

Gondola
Gondola is a hosted CMS that gives designers a powerful and easy platform to create amazing geo-enabled Websites.
Trailmapping
Still in development, Trailmapping is a GPS enabled trail guide and trip logger.

Categories

Archives

Elsewhere

What we’ve been up to online

Interested in working with us?
Fill out the form below or contact us at:

PO Box 774441
Steamboat Springs, CO
80477

ph: 970.879.8810
fx:  970.367.8596
info@lincolnloop.com