fedup in seattle December 25, 2005 at 7:31 p.m.

I for the life of me can't get the dang django to work for two seconds without it blowing up in ma face.. I tried to go through the 7 minutes tutorial and it crapped out on me when I tried to do an "init".

I keep hearing how user-friendly Python is, but every time I turn around, I have the ole TraceBack of Death staring me in the face.

Django seems like a nice product, can you put in that little extra effort to make sure people trying out your "hype videos" don't end up getting pissed off and leaving your screencasts in a huff altogether?

or at least describe the pre-req setup before you jump into your video? there's always that one thing that doesn't work and that one "little" thing that "also" needs to be done before an example would work.. it just gets tiring.

Adrian Holovaty December 25, 2005 at 11:36 p.m.

Hey fedup: Sorry you had problems. We've actually got quite a few kinks worked out in the Django development version, and in a separate code branch that we'll be integrating soon. We'll be updating the documentation (including the tutorial) to reflect these improvements soon.

Also, there aren't any "hype videos" yet. We're holding off until we're pleased with the easiness of installation.

Brandon Nuttall December 26, 2005 at 8:31 p.m.

I actually haven't had many problems with the Django setup, as long as you follow the docs on this website *very carefully* and keep in mind that they were written for the 0.90 release. Haven't tried setting up a development version yet.

João Marcus December 27, 2005 at 5:35 a.m.

I have followed for the development version the same instructions written for the 0.9 release, with no problems at all. My suggestions:
1) Make startapp have an option to automatically add the app to INSTALLED_APPS
2) Have commands to create template directories and add them to the template directories list of the settings.py file
3) (Handy!) Have commands to create CRUD pages for models:
# django-admin.py createcrudfor MyModel
Then it creates dummy templates and adds urls to the urls.py file.
4) What about having a way to define the url schema for the CRUD pages?

less fedup in seattle December 30, 2005 at 10:55 a.m.

Adrian, don't get me wrong, you and the django team is doing an awesome job, but please for the love of gawd, your audience is not the 'converted'. Its the dumbasses like me out there.

here you have a beautiful skyscraper built, but you forget to put a frikkin door in the front. And when someone asks "how do I get in?"

the answer is, build yourself a rope ladder you frikkin idiot, the instructions for that are by the southwest corner of the building and there is a window on the third floor through which you can get in.. oh did we mention you have to build a crossbow to send the rope ladder up.. oh and btw.. the rope __has__ to be nylon v1.2 , from Henry's shop? okay? otherwise you won't get in..

now if you'll excuse us, we have to go put another ten floors on our sky scraper. Don't bother us with your stupid nagging..

not that you personally do it, but its that the framework is kind of like that..

Moral of the story:

keep building the skyscraper higher and higher but you won't have any tenants cuz there's no place to get in.

peace out!

P.S. Great work, but it might as well be in chinese, cuz it aint no good for me. I hope the ultra-smart will figure this out and make your project a success by converting to Django in droves (since there are so many ultra-smart people in the world)

Lukas December 30, 2005 at 12:41 p.m.

You did read the tutorials and installation instructions, did you? I was a total python newbie when I discovered django, there were less than half of the docs than there are now and despite all that I managed to grasp what's this all about and build a few little webapps. The documentation is out there, dude, and it's quite readable and good, too! :)

Peter Van Garderen December 30, 2005 at 1:10 p.m.

Can't wait to get up into this skyscraper myself. I am a Python newbie also. I am not a total tech idiot but I am lazy. So I am patiently waiting for the 1.0 release to avoid some of the newbie/installation/documentation problems that Fedup experienced. I certainly don't want to start playing with a data model component that is in the middle of a major overhaul (magic removal branch).

I have been kicking the tires on a few MVC frameworks recently and I am most enthusiastic about Django. Based on the online documentation, blogosphere chatter, and the discussions I've read on the user/developer mailing list, I have faith that this team/community can deliver. I am excited about jumping in...as soon as version 1.0 launches :-)

P.S. what is the ETA for 1.0? Are we there yet Papa Smurf?

Joao Marcus December 30, 2005 at 7:29 p.m.

Peter, AFAIK the data model component itself will not be changed that much. It's some of the magic (e.g. putting the models in the django.models module) that will be removed. You can safely play with Django right now, it won't be hard to do the changes when 1.0 arrives.
BTW, if you want to check the progress, go to code.djangoproject.com :)

Abe Usher December 31, 2005 at 12:06 a.m.

Thanks for your continued work on this meaningful project (and for contributing the code to the open source community). I've been tinkering with Python for about a year (I'm a C# guy by trade)... this is by far the most useful application of Guido's language that I have found on the Internet. Keep up the great work.

Brian January 6, 2006 at 4:51 p.m.

Well, every framework has a whiner and django's whiner is "fedup in seatle"

Hehe. Great work with django. I am using it at work right now! Owns by far Crap... ups... Ruby On Rails :).

Colin January 10, 2006 at 5:51 p.m.

Well.. I'm afraid i have to agree with fedup here. The parts i find on this site certainly have made me look at django. And i'm sure it might be the best solution for me.

But.. and this really is a huge drawback.. the documentation is a bit sucky.. Not all features are documented (at least the last time i checked.. which, to be honest, was a few months ago)

I know you people probably get sick comparing this to rails, yet rails has good, be it commercial, documentation in the form of the agile dev with rails book. Yes this book it is not complete nor up to date, but the book is a good guide, and to dive in the new features/tiny details you have the documentation.

As for django, all there is are a few html pages. There is no api reference, neither a "walk-through" / pet-store app. And yes atm that is really holding me back from trying django, i really don't want to use an easy framework only to find myself tearing my hairs out while browsing through django source code to so what a function or module is _exactly_ about.

fed up in seattle January 13, 2006 at 2:37 a.m.

Dude Brian, why don't you write or fix tutorial#3? I've been pi**ng around with it for TWO firgin days. Keep this attitude up and you won't have these whiners for long who are actually bothering to check things out and leave comments.

look at the URLCONF stuff.. its got 3 directories, one has to be 2 directories above the other but not the other way around. put this here tuple in that their comma after the thinga ma jiggy bloopity bllop and oh yeah don't forget this.. etc. etc. you know the drr.. (well you DON"T know the drill, but I do)

maybe you people should stop being sycophants and actually help the core team out by fixing up the tutorials. As opposed to being Python Fanboys (kinda like the rails-fanboys ?) Instead of just throwing vague comments which make you sound like a poser, do something concrete, like read and improve the docs, comment on something, make a positive contribution even though your language may not be flowery a$$ $4i7 certified by dr. phil for being politically correct.

Adrian and the core team have done a phenomenal job, but they need help. if you're so great at using django, why aren't you fixing the tutorials up? why aren't you organizing some kind of testing of documentation by noobs? instead of telling us how great it is? We know its great. Can we move on?

At least I'm trying to point some things out (maybe I don't get high marks for being subtle) rather than kissing a$$ and being a fanboy. I'm banging my head against the wall trying to learn Django and python because I can sense this thing is powerful, if only I could wrap my head around it.

so, don't try to intimidate the people who are genuinely trying to figure this thing out. use our frustrations to build a better product. Is that so hard to understand?

KP February 17, 2006 at 4:11 a.m.

Just started with django this week. I am already seeing results and want more. Maybe its your approach that is letting you down. While I agree that the tutorial should sing and dance, I don’t use them start to finish. This is due to a low attention span. I find that if I spend more time understanding and less time typing in sample apps that I learn quicker.
I only refer to sections of sample apps when I have a problem with my own. While it may seem that this is slower, you figure out how to fix issues and where to go for answers. Thus learning.
This kind of problem is not unique to django, the guys want to spend time on what they should be doing, coding the sh1t out it, that’s what they do. Unfortunately marketing may not be their gig.
More learning by being in the uncomfortable zone, works for me !