Django Tutorial for Beginners – Learn the Core Aspects of Django Framework

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Today, we are going to learn about a popular framework that many companies are using for the development of their web applications. We will learn the core aspects of this framework in this Django Tutorial.

This Django tutorial is for beginners of web-development and will teach you how to create web applications using Django so that you could create websites with backend from python.

In this Django tutorial, we will learn the Django framework, the reasons to learn Django, its features, architecture, and the benefits of Django. We will also discuss prerequisites to learn Django, the history of Django and the companies which use Django in this Django tutorial.

Whenever we hear the word ‘Django’, some common questions arrive in our mind like what is Django and what are the uses of Django. Lets first discuss the definition of Django in the Django tutorial.

What is Django?

Django is basically a high-level Python web application framework that enables the rapid development of web applications. It achieves so with pragmatic, much cleaner design and is also easy to use (in comparison of other frameworks) thus is very popular among web developers.

It is a backend framework used to resolve problems of connectivity with databases, other server problems, SEO solutions, etc so that a web developer need not write the same code for the similar modules (like database connection, admin interface) for each website.

All the functionality comes in the Django framework in the form of web applications. You just have to import those applications according to your need and thus you can concentrate more on the unique application of your website rather than dealing with all these backend problems.

Django Tutorial – History of Django Framework

Now, in the Django tutorial, we will discuss the history of Django. Django was created by two web developers Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison working at the Lawrence Journal-World Newspaper in 2003. It was released publicly as a BSD license in July 2005. The framework was named after guitarist Django Reinhardt.

The main reason behind Django’s existence is that Django inherited Python’s “batteries-included” approach and includes pre-made modules and applications for common tasks in web development like user authentication, templates, routes, and views, admin interface, robust security and support for multiple database backends.

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Django has solved some major issues for web-developers which were solved at the expense of time and money before its existence.

Prerequisites to Learn Django

You need to have some prior knowledge of Python and should have some basic idea of the Command line interface/PowerShell for windows or Terminal for macOS/Linux.

Learning Django only requires a basic knowledge of these technologies, therefore a fresher in Django can learn the Django framework easily.

Why Learn Django?

Before learning any technology, we should know the reasons to learn it. Therefore, now in the Django tutorial, we will discuss various reasons to learn Django.

Django offers lots of features and is a new emerging technology of the future. Since it is based on python, which itself is a very powerful language and also is going to be used in the future extensively, therefore, it is worthwhile to learn Django.

Some important reasons to learn Django include:

i. Django has Evolved Over Time

Since the release of Django, it is having a lot of features and still, Django continues its journey and has been in the industry for more than a decade. It’s a fairly long time and has several releases in that course of time.

Django has fixed lots of security issues and has introduced lots of features, thus this time period accounts for the stability of Django and also that the technology is powerful enough to stay in the industry.

ii. Open-Source Technology

Django is an open source technology and that sometimes means that the documents are not given that much priority, but that’s not the case with Django.

Django from the release in 2005 has excellent documentation and it’s still well maintained that means at the time of release this was the only framework with great documentation.

iii. One of the World’s Best Software Community

Django framework community is one of the best communities out there as they support all the projects and resolve all the queries they can in a supporting manner. That is one of the reasons that the Django community is growing at a fast pace and

therefore more and more people are shifting towards Django and it will be used more extensively in the future. This is the reason, why it is a great addition to your resume.

iv. Django has Lots of Pre-Made Apps

Since Django has a great community. It also has lots of packages which can solve your problems with ease. These packages can be easily found with its well-maintained documentation, and thus resulting in rapid development.

5. Features of Django Framework

The Django project’s stability, performance, and community have grown tremendously since the framework’s creation. The Django framework continues to evolve significantly with new functionalities such as database migrations with every release.

features of django

i. Stability

Often, you will see that Django is amongst the first frameworks to respond to a new vulnerability. It means, Django is a time-tested framework and has been improving over the course of time. Not every bug, but a lot of them get fixes in Django.

As you must have heard, “Humans get wiser with age; a software makes better decisions over time”.

ii. Excellent Documentation

Django despite being the open source project, it provides wonderful documentation and its documents are always up to the mark by Django developers. When Django was introduced it was one of the main features that set Django apart from other open source projects and has only gotten better over time.

iii. Highly Scalable

Scalability for any technology is a big factor when using the technology on larger projects with wide coverage. Django can utilize all the hardware you throw at it and still, it can develop on smaller scale systems.

It is based on a “share-nothing architecture”, which means you can add hardware at any level like database, servers, web servers and cache servers.

For Example – Instagram and Pinterest use Django while maintaining a large number of active users.

iv. Resolves Security Issues

Django by default resolves lots of security issues which are there in frameworks of PHP. Django does so, by dynamically generating web pages and using templates to send information to web-browsers, from direct viewing of the internet.

v. Utilizes SEO

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, a process for increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. Web-development and SEO often seem to be crossing each other. But with Django, you should find this less of an issue.

Django framework uses the human-readable website URLs, which helps with search engines and isn’t only helpful from the actual user’s perspective, but also helpful for search engine algorithms using the keywords in the URL when ranking sites.

vi. Huge Library of Packages

Django community is very huge and supporting and they provide you with packages for almost everything you may need in a website and you can very easily create management systems according to you.

vii. Allows Pragmatic and Robust Design

Django’s main features are that it allows for full-scale web-applications which creates with ease. Its code is from scratch rather than importing some of the libraries of python which already have the same features.

6. Django Architecture

Before moving to Django architecture, we will first discuss the web application framework. The web application framework is the tool that provides you with components and modules pre-written so that web applications are made much more easily.

Django has lots of features that make it so much efficient and easy and fun to use. Django is based on Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, which consists of three different parts:

 

MVC Pattern

 

  • Model – The Model is the logical data structure behind the complete application and represents by a database (generally relational databases such as MySQL, Postgres).
  • View – The View is the user interface that you see in the browser whenever you visit a website. They represent it through HTML/CSS/JavaScript files.
  • Controller – The Controller is the middleman that connects the view and model together. It means the controller is the passing data from the model to the view.

In MVC architecture, your application will revolve around the model by either displaying it or manipulating it.

For example – A user will enter a URL in their browser, that request will go through the internet protocols(HTTP), to the server, which will call the Django.

Django will then process the given URL path, and if the URL matches, it will call the Controller which will get an entry from your database and then render a View (HTML/CSS/JavaScript Web page).

7. Django Tutorial – Companies Using Django

Many big names extensively use Django that you must be using. Although they change the framework a lot and utilize it according to their needs but at the core its Django.

Among the biggest Websites using Django, we have:

i. Instagram

One of the biggest social media apps out there, Instagram is a very popular social app. Django is at the core of Instagram and they have just become a gold-level sponsor of the Django Software Foundation (DSF).

Django has great integration with other technologies like iOS and Android apps. Therefore it enables Instagram to launch quickly and handle millions of active users at the same time.

ii. Disqus

One of the largest Django projects out there, the developers used python and Django to build the Disqus app from scratch. They wanted their websites to be able to handle a huge number of active users at the same time.

They also made sentry, an app that checks for errors and this is a state-of-the-art technology also based on Django.

iii. Spotify

Spotify has transformed the way we listen to the music and it does so by using machine-learning implementations via python. The extensive song libraries and training are under python-based AI.

To integrate things, it uses Django for its web-applications and thus, you get a full python experience on Spotify.

iv. YouTube

World’s largest video hosting platform which encompasses anything you can imagine and is a great way to watch content, for entertainment, for learning and what not. They were using PHP before, but now they are shifting towards Django.

The reason is that it allows for more rapid development and is capable of handling a huge number of active users. At the same time, maintaining the security and speed of the website.

For more examples you can visit the Django Sites database, they offer a list of over 5000 Django-powered Web sites.

Now, in the Django tutorial, we will discuss various advantages of Django.

8. Advantages of Django

The Django project is to implement the design philosophies. These are some of the main advantages of Django which sets it apart from other frameworks.

Advantages of Django

i. Loose Coupling

Django framework is loosely coupled and tightly bound such that various layers of the framework need not “know” about each other unless absolutely necessary. This also gives Django a security advantage over other frameworks.

ii. Lesser Code

Django takes full advantage of pre-written apps and thus have much less code to write yourself.

Also, Django is written from scratch without the use of any libraries in python although you will get lots of functions common in Django. Those libraries Django’s code is more optimized for web uses thus is much more efficient.

iii. Doesn’t Repeat

Multiple copies of anything use more storage and give less functionality and on the web, bulkier the code more is the bandwidth it takes of the end-user.

This coding practice is common practice but Django takes it a level further. It also has applications written for all of the tasks that you may ever need. Thus you don’t have to write anything that repeats in other websites rather just focus on your own website.

iv. Consistency

The main work of the web-applications is that they are the mediators between different technologies. Also, the framework is consistent at all levels and functions with the same consistency. It happens even if the model becomes too big or the project is small.

v. Versatile

Django effectively completes all the activities like management of content, scientific computing platforms, and even big organizations.

This comes to the end of the Django tutorial. We hope you like our explanation.

9. Django Tutorial – Summary

We have studied the Django framework, its history, features, reasons to learn Django, its architecture, companies which use Django and the benefits of Django.

Any queries or feedback related to the Django Tutorial? Feel free to enter in the comment section.

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11 Responses

  1. Harshil says:

    Django follow the MVT (Mode, View, Template) architecture. Where M=DB Schema, V=Logic of application, T=Front-end. Not MVC.

    • DataFlair Team says:

      Hey Harshil,
      Thanks for the comment on Django tutorial. At Django, they believe the view is “what is shown” than “how it is shown”. This is to separate content from presentation. A template describes how data is shown, while a view describes what data is shown. To put it simply, the standard names are debatable. For more information, you can visit Django MTV Architecture.
      Hope, it will help you!

  2. sanysak says:

    Thanks you for your explanation
    Should we use django with other web development framework?
    Can we integrate django with other tool?

    • DataFlair Team says:

      Hey Sanysak,

      Django is a backend server framework and yes it can be integrated with other front end frameworks.

  3. steve hepple says:

    is this course, django tutorial free ?

  4. mokie says:

    thanks for this amusing explanation.Really u said it well….

  5. Bostan Khan says:

    thank you so much data flair team.it is very helpful for me

  6. Sabbir Ahmed says:

    Nice to learn

  7. Nq814hU says:

    The explanation is ‘sniper’ precise and manoeuvres in the confines of the very core of Django. Any beginner would find it helpful. However, MVT and MVC debates leave me at a dilemma between two rights. Kindly help shed light on that topic to enhance understanding.

  8. Reza says:

    which version of Django do you teach us?

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