Learn the Core Aspects of Django Framework
Malini Shukla
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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.
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.
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.
Read more about top 5 Django Apps
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.
Django framework has several features which we will discuss one by one in the Django tutorial:
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.