(the quality of my post titles is really going downhill…)
So as part of submerging myself in code of all sorts, and hoping that some of it sticks, I’ve been reading and working through as much Django as I can possibly manage – which, with a four-month-old child at home, isn’t that much.
Django, as well as being part of the title of Quentin Tarantino’s latest film (which is really annoying in search results), is a web development framework built on Python. I’ve got to admit, I found it initially very difficult to get my head around, as in the past I’ve always either made simple pages in html/css, or used a CMS which does all the database and template jiggery-pokery in the background for me, leaving me free to concentrate on content. But with Django I’m now using a programming language to define and work with the database, create the templates, and add the content! It’s a bit odd to me, but with each bit more I do the more I’m liking it.
Django was created to build content-driven websites really quickly, and I can see how now. When I read that it was possible to create a full blogging system from scratch, within half an hour, I was skeptical, but I’ve actually done that now (albeit with the help of a tutorial). It’s very clever stuff, it just needs a new way of thinking to pull it all together. Once I’ve worked my way through all the various tutorials I’m going to have a go at pulling something together for myself. My hosts here seem to be pretty good, so hopefully I can get an development environment set up to actually show what I’m doing, as well as boring you senseless with this :).