
Ask HN: Advice for someone struggling to learn Django - megasquid
Hello HackerNews.  I&#x27;ve been trying to learn Django for about a half a year now. After completing many tutorials I find myself struggling to build projects that deviate from said tutorials.  Any suggestions?
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viraptor
Deviate, identify what is the problem, solve that problem, repeat. When you
can describe a very specific problem, stackoverflow is great. Otherwise, IRC
or some django-specific community may be a better place. If you think you're
struggling, break down the issue into small bits: what are you trying to
achieve, what have you tried, what's the smallest bit of progress you can make
right now / what's the immediate issue that's stopping you.

You'll always find new problems if you try new things. That's learning, not
struggling. :-) (worth repeating to get a more positive outlook)

~~~
megasquid
Thank you viraptor. I've been on irc since posting this. Should've been using
that resource ages ago. Really needed someone I could ask specific questions
and didn't really know where to turn for that. Excited to be learning not
struggling :)

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ldonley
It might be worthwhile to use a library like Flask which has less batteries
included. This will force you to figure out which pieces of the puzzle you are
missing and will (hopefully) allow you to learn a lot through exploration.

Once you understand what everything is doing, going back to Django, you should
understand what all of the components are doing.

Django & Flask are not exactly one-to-one with the way they handle a lot of
things, but I think it would still be a useful exercise.

~~~
megasquid
Thanks Idonley. I have heard that flask is easier. At this point I feel too
deep into Django to give up. However, picking up some flask stuff on the side
could be worthwhile. Would certainly broaden my understanding of it all.

~~~
bigmanwalter
I would second this advice. Flask is structured much more intuitively than
Django. The first time I tried Flask after Django everything just clicked into
place immediately.

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twobyfour
Before learning Django, did you already understand the fundamentals of the
web, relational databases, and basic programming?

Django abstracts away the tedious aspects of the use of SQL databases, form
validation, HTTP requests and responses, and the like. It does not absolve you
from understanding the underlying structures.

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wreath
Try to understand why things are done the way they are and what is actually
happening instead of just following the tutorial systematically. If you have
some knowledge gap, say in basic HTTP or data modeling concepts, make sure you
read about those as well. This will strengthen your understanding of the
framework. Also, if this is your first time with Python, I highly recommend
learning Python before learning the framework. This applies to any language
out there.

~~~
megasquid
Thanks Wreath. That's good advice. I have been brushing up on my python skills
as I was concerned that may be my problem. I unfortunately did learn Django
very very shortly after i started diving into python. Will continue to further
my python education for sure!

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pydox
Learn HTML and CSS, Python, and then Django. Think of a new idea. Try build
when learning Django.

~~~
megasquid
Thanks Pydox. I do know html and css. I've been doing that for a little over a
year now. Currently design a lot of landing pages for work. I'm currently
working on www.correlate.pro with Django :) My website www.samuelpiecz.com is
built with Django and I've built a couple other little projects. My website
does need to be updated badly though..

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alphanumeric0
Hi, I'd suggest finding a local Python or Django user group and asking for
help. Also it's worth joining #django on irc to ask questions.

~~~
megasquid
Thanks for the advice. I will certainly start taking advantage of irc.
Unfortunately no meetups around here.

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pryelluw
Email me any questions. Id love to help. If you are on twitter, then Id
connect you to some great django people.

(Check my profile)

~~~
megasquid
Thank you very much! I really appreciate it. Have added you on twitter,
however, I'm not super active on social media.

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mjhea0
Which tutorials have you done thus far?

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megasquid
I've done all the teamtreehouse python and Django tutorials. Which took a few
months. Even did it a second time. Then also the django polls tutorial on the
Django docs site. Plus the local library tut that is on the mozilla site. Also
built a storefront using Django but I used 3rd party integrations to deal with
payment processing and the shopping cart (stripe and snappycheckout).

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3131s
Have you read through "Two Scoops of Django" yet? I am not really a fan of any
Django learning resources (that I'm aware of) outside of that one, and the
docs. It helped me because it explicitly lays out an opinionated but sensible
way of structuring projects.

~~~
megasquid
I have read about half of it so far. All projects I have worked on recently
I've used the Cookiecutter that Audrey and Danny offer. It's extremely
helpful. Thanks for reminding me I need to finish it!

