

Ask HN: Learning Django post-"Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw" - njstartups

I've pretty much completed Zed Shaw's course, "Learning Python the Hard Way."  Although at the beginning I was skeptical, I've really begun to grasp the semantics of the language and I feel his way to teaching really works for me.<p>Now that I have the basics down, I would like to really learn Django.  Are there any Django apps with source code available that I can learn from by replicating the code?<p>I know I can stroll over to GitHub but as a novice, I'm concerned about the code being clean and I'm pretty sure I haven't developed an eye yet for what's clean and what's not.<p>Any recommendations?
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martey
When I started learning Django, the first thing I did was work through the
tutorial in the official documentation.

I cannot stress enough how useful the official documentation is. Not only is
it chock full of useful code examples, but the fact that it is a living
document means that it is always up-to-date (unlike Django books or blog
posts).

I can not really think of any useful Django applications on Github or
Bitbucket that are simple enough for someone who is learning the framework to
replicate, but if pushed I would suggest:

\- the source code for the framework itself

\- applications made by core developers (like django-registration or django-
taggit)

\- applications with a significant following in the community (like south or
django-sentry)

~~~
njstartups
Yes, that's going to be my primary source for learning Django. Thanks!

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jwong42
I was a novice in programming and wanted to try web development so I chose
python and Django as my starting point. I started learning Django by first
doing the poll app tutorial found on the official Django documentation page.
<https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/intro/tutorial01/>

Then I read the online Django Book and followed along the examples found in
those chapters. <http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/>

After that, I felt I had a good grasp of Django but wanted to get a more
complete experience of building a simple but powerful web app so I purchased
this book - [http://www.amazon.com/Django-Website-Development-Ayman-
Houri...](http://www.amazon.com/Django-Website-Development-Ayman-
Hourieh/dp/1847196780). I really learned a lot from this book since not only
did it provide me with a better understanding of the Django framework, it also
helped me learn how to build all the nice features like tagging, search and
integrate other technologies such as JQuery.

Now, I am trying to develop my own app using the book as a guide and I am
having a lot of fun with it!

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sixtofour
The Django tutorial is pretty good. You build up a very basic polling
application as you follow the tutorial and learn the basic chunks of Django.

<https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/intro/tutorial01/>

Any good intro book is going to have something similar. "Python Web
Development with Django" includes a number of example projects. You can either
follow along in the book and type in the examples (the "Hard" way) or download
the projects and see/run them at once in their finished form (the "Common"
way).

<http://withdjango.com/>

<http://withdjango.com/readers/source/>

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samrat
Go through the Django tutorial which you'll find in the django website,
they're really helpful. Then go to showmedo.com's tutorials(they're a bit
outdated but I think they really nail the concepts).

If you're not in a hurry though, and are new to web development, I'd really
suggest learning Flask. It's a great introduction to web development in
Python.

------
adrianscott
There's a few starter apps w/ source code at <http://www.coderbuddy.com/> and
you can start editing and testing them using the site.

(You can also upload and expand zip files of other projs/code you may find, as
well as copy public projects into new projects of your own.)

Hope this helps...

~~~
njstartups
Thanks! Never heard of <http://coderbuddy.com> before so looking forward to
exploring it.

