Web Development with Django

Learn how to create your own websites simply, safely, and quickly with Django by tackling practical activities based on realistic case studies

Key Features

• Understand Django functionality and the Model-View-Template (MVT) paradigm
• Create and iteratively build a book review website, adding features as you build your knowledge
• Explore advanced concepts such as REST API implementation and third-party module integration

Book Description

Do you want to develop reliable and secure applications which stand out from the crowd, rather than spending hours on boilerplate code? Then the Django framework is where you should begin. Often referred to as a 'batteries included' web development framework, Django comes with all the core features needed to build a standalone application.

Web Development with Django takes this philosophy and equips you with the knowledge and confidence to build real-world applications using Python.

Starting with the essential concepts of Django, you'll cover its major features by building a website called Bookr – a repository for book reviews. This end-to-end case study is split into a series of bitesize projects that are presented as exercises and activities, allowing you to challenge yourself in an enjoyable and attainable way.

As you progress, you'll learn various practical skills, including how to serve static files to add CSS, JavaScript, and images to your application, how to implement forms to accept user input, and how to manage sessions to ensure a reliable user experience. Throughout this book, you'll cover key daily tasks that are part of the development cycle of a real-world web application.

By the end of this book, you'll have the skills and confidence to creatively tackle your own ambitious projects with Django.

What you will learn

• Create a new application and add models to describe your data
• Use views and templates to control behavior and appearance
• Implement access control through authentication and permissions
• Develop practical web forms to add features such as file uploads
• Develop a RESTful API and JavaScript code that communicates with it
• Connect to a database such as PostgreSQL

Who this book is for

Web Development with Django is designed for programmers who want to gain web development skills with the Django framework. To fully understand the concepts explained in this book, you must have basic knowledge of Python programming, as well as familiarity with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Django
2. Models and Migrations
3. URL Mapping, Views, and Templates
4. Introduction to Django Admin
5. Serving Static Files
6. Forms
7. Advanced Form Validation and Model Forms
8. Media Serving and File Uploads
9. Sessions and Authentication
10. Advanced Django Admin and Customizations
11. Advanced Templating and Class Based Views
12. Building a REST API
13. Generating CSV, PDF, and Other Binary Files
14. Testing
15. Django Third-Party Libraries
16. Using a Frontend JavaScript Library with Django

Ben Shaw is a software engineer based in Auckland, New Zealand. He has worked as a developer for over 14 years and has been building websites with Django since 2007. In that time, his experience has helped many different types of companies, ranging in size from start-ups to large enterprises. He is also interested in machine learning, data science, automating deployments, and DevOps. When not programming, Ben enjoys outdoor sports and spending time with his partner and son.

Saurabh Badhwar is an infrastructure engineer who works on building tools and frameworks that enhance developer productivity. A major part of his work involves using Python to develop services that scale to thousands of concurrent users. He is currently employed at LinkedIn and works on infrastructure performance tools and services.

Andrew Bird is the data and analytics manager of Vesparum Capital. He leads the software and data science teams at Vesparum, overseeing full-stack web development in Django/React. He is an Australian actuary (FIAA, CERA) who has previously worked with Deloitte Consulting in financial services. Andrew also currently works as a full-stack developer for Draftable Pvt. Ltd. He manages the ongoing development of the donation portal for the Effective Altruism Australia website on a voluntary basis. Andrew has also co-written one of our bestselling titles, "The Python Workshop".

Bharath Chandra K S lives in Sydney, Australia, and has over 10 years of software industry experience. He is very passionate about software development on the Python stack, including frameworks such as Flask and Django. He has experience working with both monolithic and microservice architectures and has built various public-facing applications and data processing backend systems. When not cooking up software applications, he likes to cook food.

Chris Guest started programming in Python 20 years ago, when it was an obscure academic language. He has since used his Python knowledge in the publishing, hospitality, medical, and academic sectors. Throughout his career, he has worked with many Python web development frameworks, including Zope, TurboGears, web2py, and Flask, although he still prefers Django.