Introduction to Python Django: Starting with Django's Design Philosophy

Enjoy Django the right way
by understanding the Django philosophy 💪

A Django course for beginners who want to get started the right way 🔥

This is a theory-oriented introductory lecture that provides in-depth explanations of Django's design philosophy along with the necessary syntax. While there is an existing <The Complete Guide to Python/Django Web Service Development with React> course, its large volume can be overwhelming for beginners, so I created this course specifically for introductory purposes. It is composed of introductory content not covered in the previous lecture.

However, it may be difficult for those who are new to web development. For beginners, I recommend first studying Life Coding's <Python Django Web Framework> YouTube course.

Life is short. Save your time by clearly understanding and utilizing Python and Django.

Recommended for these people 🙋‍♀️

Those who want to start learning web app development after learning basic Python syntax

Those who lack an understanding of the basic syntax required to learn Django

Those who want to understand Django more deeply through Django's design philosophy

Those who want to freely read and utilize application code implemented with Django

Course Features ✨

What you will learn 📚

1. Setting up the development environment

We will guide you through setting up a modern development environment for Windows and Mac.

• Instead of manually installing necessary programs one by one, you can install them all at once from the command line using a package manager (Windows: scoop, Mac: homebrew).
• Installing and managing multiple versions of Python on a PC is difficult. However, through pyenv, you can easily use different Python versions/interpreters for each project.
• There is no doubt that Visual Studio Code is the most popular editor in the world. However, that is not the case for Django development. We will install and guide you through PyCharm Professional, the best IDE for Django development.

2. Django Core Design Philosophy Overall

This chapter covers the 'General' section of Django's design philosophy. There is a perception that Django is slow and difficult to learn because of its large size. One of Django's design philosophies is 'Loose Coupling.' Django simply provides many features out of the box. On the other hand, many people vaguely assume that Flask is fast, but that is because it has fewer features as a Micro Framework. Application performance is not determined by the language or framework. It depends on the developer.

3. Client Request Processing and URL Mapping

Let's take a look at Django's design philosophy regarding <Views> and <URL Design>.

• Python syntax covered: functions, positional/keyword arguments, default arguments, closures, first-class functions/classes, type hinting
• Django implements views as functions (Callable Objects), which simplifies the view implementation. We will also compare this with request handling in Spring.
• Practice: We will implement a post list page and a post detail page.

4. Template System

We will complete the email subject and content using the Django template system and practice sending emails via SMTP.

• How to efficiently compose email message strings using the Django template system
• How to configure SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) settings in Naver Mail
• Sending SMTP emails using the Django 'Custom Management Command' system

5. Decorators and Views

We will look into the necessity of the decorator syntax, which is actively used in Django, and explore how to create decorators.

• We will take a deep look at decorators as a way to implement AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming) in Python.
• Introduction to Decorators in Django: cache_page (caching view responses), login_required (redirecting to the login page if not logged in), transaction.atomic (DB transactions), user_passes_test (checking user permissions with custom rules), permission_required (checking user permissions)
• Practice: We will use the login_required decorator to easily check whether a user is logged in when accessing a specific page.

6. Database Processing Using Django Models

We will examine the Django design philosophy regarding <Models> and explore <Django Models> as a supported ORM (Object Relational Mapping) technology.

• Django models use class syntax. We will examine the differences between class variables and instance variables, which are often confusing in Python class syntax, as well as the Descriptor syntax used when defining Django model fields.
• We will briefly look at the process of defining model classes and how database tables are created and managed through the migration feature.

7. Database API

We will examine the Django design philosophy regarding the <Database API>.

• Concise and powerful syntax: It should be possible to create rich, expressive queries with as little syntax as possible.
• SQL Efficiency: Provides a way to query 'related objects' together with high performance.
• It should be easy to write SQL statements when necessary: SQL queries can be executed without the intervention of a model.

Expected Questions Q&A 💬

About the Instructor ✒️

I am Jinseok Lee, a software developer who is passionate about Python and Django.

• Python holic, developer with 12 years of experience in Django practice
• Operator of the Django Q&A community Ask Company with Django/React (formerly Ask Django)
• Operator of Ask Company, a Python/Django education service
• Daejeon <Python Sarangbang> Operator
• Awarded Microsoft Azure MVP (2016~2021, What is a Microsoft MVP?)
• Seoul National University, Combined Major in Venture Management, Python/Django Instructor for "Web Programming for Venture Startups" (2016/2017)
• Fastcampus, Web Service Development Camp (Python/Django) 3rd Class Instructor, 2nd Class Assistant (2015)
• Lectures and consulting for numerous universities and corporations: Seoul National University, KAIST, Pusan National University, Hanyang University, Kookmin University, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, LS Group, SK Planet, Encore, KB Securities, SK Telink, Hyundai Motor Group Innocean, Koscom, Naver NIT Service, Art Center Nabi, Bank of Korea, Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology, etc.

YouTube Video

Django Live Coding Show (50 min. YouTube St.) Through this video, I demonstrate the power of Django web development through live coding.