Pro Django

by Marty Alchin

Thank you for your interest in Pro Django by Marty Alchin, a new book from Apress, scheduled for release on December 18, 2008. It promises to be a guide through the lesser-known, under-documented, incredibly useful aspects of the Django Web framework you probably never knew existed.

Pre-order now from Amazon!

Also, the code is available, so you don’t have to retype everything if you want to try it out.

Another Django book?

Yes, but it’s not what you’re probably thinking. There are certainly a number of books about Django already on the market, and a few more that are well under way, but my goal from the outset was to avoid duplicating the material in these other texts. Instead, I use them as a starting point, a landing on a larger staircase that I continue to climb. I’ll take you well beyond the official documentation, darting in and out of Django’s mysterious inner workings, demystifying it along the way, and illustrating useful ways to bend Django to your will in ways you probably never thought possible.

Who’s it for?

I’ll be honest, Pro Django isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s not for people who are new to Django, and especially not those who are new to Python. There are plenty of other resources out there to help you get started with Python and Django, so if that’s what you need, might I suggest Dive Into Python and The Definitive Guide to Django. Intermediate users may also be more interested in James Bennett’s Practical Django Projects, which provides a more real-world introduction to working Django from idea through implementation.

Unlike these other books, Pro Django, is for those developers who’ve reached what they perceive the be the limits of Django, and are looking ways to push beyond, into applications that might seem unsuitable for such a framework. If you’re working with Django currently and have run up against a situation you can’t find a way out of, or if you’ve considered Django, but aren’t sure if it’s up the challenge of an upcoming project, this book is for you.

Who’s writing it?

I’m a professional Web developer with two years experience working with the Django Web framework. In the past two years, I’ve worked on several applications and released a few into the wild, including ones for signed cookies and database-backed settings, both of which make use of some of the techniques in this book. I’ve spent the past year blogging fairly regularly, including a post every day of November 2007, where I detailed many of the techniques I present in the book. I also gave my first public presentation at this year’s PyCon, describing some of the inner workings of Django that are covered in much more detail in the book.