Django community: RSS
This page, updated regularly, aggregates Community blog posts from the Django community.
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Love/Hate
Every day that I spend messing with python and django, I learn something new or find simpler ways of doing things than I've done them in the past. Tonight I've been experimenting with Django's templating language. I've been building my tag libraries to augment the django's general purpose templating language and data filters for a while now, but today I started really poking around its eqivalent of ObjectGraphNotationLanguage. The stuff I'm doing is really going to change the way we build stuff at work. At the same time, there are a lot of nasty annoyances/bugs/oversights that are hard to believe. Still, for development it kicks Java J2EE ass any day. I joke at work that django either rocks or sucks depending on whether it is an odd or even hour. It's almost 4 am now, so I guess I should turn in while it still rocks. Post to Del.icio.us -
Finalizing PyCon 2006 pictures
I found some time to finalize my pictures and notes on PyCon 2006. I tried my best to identify people in my pictures. Now you can see their names and links to their blogs. I added links to official descriptions of their talks, as well as to excellent detailed notes of some talks by Steve Holden. I advise to visit his blog, because he has notes on some talks I didn't attend.If you want to relive your PyCon 2006 memories (or implant new ones), you can do it here. While you can find blog addresses in pictures, I updated my master blog roll as well.I want to thank Andrew Kuchling, Steve Holden, Django team (Adrian Holovaty, Simon Willison, Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Matt Croydon), Ian Bicking, and all participants for the great time I had at PyCon. And now for some pictures I like: -
Renaming Climate Change
Seth Godin points out that what we should be talking about isn't climate change, it's 'Atmosphere Cancer' or something equally serious sounding. While I don't want to sound flippant about seriousness of this he may have a point. After all, the Great Bear Rain Forest used to be called the North East Timber Supply. Changing it's name was a key part of saving it. -
Renaming Climate Change
Seth Godin points out that what we should be talking about isn't climate change, it's 'Atmosphere Cancer' or something equally serious sounding. While I don't want to sound flippant about seriousness of this he may have a point. After all, the Great Bear Rain Forest used to be called the North East Timber Supply. Changing it's name was a key part of saving it. -
Free servers?
So Sun’s giving away T2000 servers for free. Well sort of, anyway: you get to try ‘em for 60 days, and according to Jonathan Schwartz if you post benchmarks of the thing’s performance, the sales department “might” let you keep the thing. Sounds too good to be true, eh? Well, I’m certainly not going to pass up the chance to fiddle with an quad-core, $8,000 server for a few months, so I filled out the form. -
Django stuff at Pycon
For anyone looking for the Django stuff I showed off at PyCon: Slides from my presentation (PDF version [9 MB]) The Sudoku app I demonstrated Source to the Sudoku app -
Django Gets Transactions
Jacob Kaplan-Moss added transaction support to the magic-removal branch of Django just a few minutes ago. It’s one of the many changes to come out of the sprint. Usage will look something like this (based on Jacob’s docs and chatting with him in #django-sprint):   from django.db import transaction   @transaction.commit_manually def view(request): # you [...] -
Versioning: The Next Big Thing
In the web development world, anyways. So, in the grand scheme of things, maybe not a huge deal to anyone else. Versioning is going to be one of the biggest problems and opportunities there is in web development, and it's going to take us at least five years to get it right. -
Form validators that always get tested
I needed to make a form that had two inputs, and wanted to require that one or both fields be filled in. While poking around in django.core.formfields, I noticed the following check: if field.is_required or new_data.get(field.field_name, False) or hasattr(validator, 'always_test'): Ah ha! What is this always_test I see here? The devs must have already thought [...] -
More PyCon 2006 pictures
I added more pictures from PyCon 2006. Enjoy. Now time for a blog roll of my photo models (far from complete):Adrian Holovaty http://www.holovaty.com/ Simon Willison http://simon.incutio.com/ Jacob Kaplan-Moss http://www.jacobian.org/ Matt Croydon http://www.postneo.com/ Derek Willis http://thescoop.org/ Ian Bicking http://blog.ianbicking.org/ Bob Ippolito http://bob.pythonmac.org/ Guido van Rossum http://www.artima.com/weblogs/index.jsp?blogger=guido Ian Maurer http://itmaurer.com/blog/ Andrew Kuchling http://www.amk.ca/diary/ Jeremy Dunck http://dunck.us/anabasis/ David Ascher http://ascher.ca/blog/ Jeremy Hylton http://www.python.org/~jeremy/weblog/ Jim Hugunin http://blogs.msdn.com/hugunin/ Phillip L. Eby http://dirtsimple.org/ Mark Ramm http://www.compoundthinking.com/blog/ Steve Holden http://holdenweb.blogspot.com/ Bram Cohen http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/ Kevin Dangoor http://www.blueskyonmars.com/ I know I missed some blogs, please let me know your blog address, and I will add it. -
Leaving MT
After all this time with MT, I've decided to go my own way. If you've ever come to the same decision, then you know that MT's export is a pretty lame format that doesn't include all of the information you might need if you migrating to another system. The solution I've come to is to create a MT template that exposes everything as a single xml document. Here's what I'm using so far: <$MTBlogID$> <$MTBlogName$> <$MTBlogURL$> <$MTBlogArchiveURL$> <$MTBlogRelativeURL$> <$MTBlogSitePath$> <$MTBlogHost$> <$MTBlogTimezone$> <$MTBlogEntryCount$> <$MTBlogCommentCount$> <$MTBlogCCLicenseURL$> <$MTEntryID$> <$MTBlogID$> <$MTEntryTitle$> <$MTEntryStatus$> <$MTEntryLink$> <$MTEntryPermaLink$> <$MTEntryKeywords$> <$MTEntryAuthor$> <$MTEntryAutherNickname$> <$MTEntryAutherEmail$> <$MTEntryAuthorURL$> <$MTEntryAuthorLink$> <$MTEntryDate$> <$MTEntryModifiedDate$> <$MTEntryCommentCount$> <$MTEntryTrackbackCount$> <$MTEntryTrackbackData$> <$MTEntryTrackbackLink$> <$MTEntryTrackbackID$> <$MTCategoryID$> <$MTCommentID$> <$MTCommentEntryID$> <$MTCommentIP$> <$MTCommentEmail$> <$MTCommentURL$> <$MTCommentDate$> <$MTCommentOrderNumber$> <$MTCategoryID$> <$MTCategoryArchiveLink$> <$MTCategoryCount$> <$MTCategoryTrackbackLink$> Post to Del.icio.us -
EN: switched to MAC
I have recently switched to Mac Tiger and finally can enjoy the OSX GUI and BSD under the hood. However I could not believe how painfull it is to setup Python for such newbie like me (more on that later). Anyway I managed to get Django running at least with the development server, so I could have started playing with that.And the very first deliverable is delicious application easily plugable into a Django project (more on that later as well).Radek -
PyCon 2006 pictures
Here in Dallas PyCon 2006 gave us an opportunity to meet many "virtual" people from Python community, and put faces to names. For those who couldn't attend I am publishing pictures and small notes on Flickr. I will add more pictures tomorrow. If anybody's name is misspelled, or missing (I didn't catch all names), or you want me to remove your name or picture, please contact me and I will change notes. I am planning to add blog addresses to people's names as well. Enjoy. For those, who missed PyCon 2006: I hope you will make it to Dallas next year for PyCon 2007! -
Thoughts on Skills Tracking in a Consulting Company
At ThoughtWorks, we have an old and boring skills and certification tracking system which managers use to find the right people for projects. The list of skills and skill categories are static. And any additions, modifications, or deletions to the list of skills or categories must be handled by an administrator. (Linking people to skills, [...] -
Setting up tools on Windows
Update 9/30/2006: when you finish this article don't forget to read more about setting up tools in the second part: Setting up tools 2. My goal is to set up working environment for Django development on Windows box. You can find a lot of information on setting up open-source development tools on Linux. Somehow it is assumed that your project should target LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python). Windows-bound guys are advised to decorate their platform as ersatz Linux: install Apache, install MySQL, and you have WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, Python). What kind of fun is that? No, we are going full WIMP (Windows, IIS, MS SQL, Python)! Below are my notes from July-August 2005 (Eclipse section was updated on 9/30/2006) on setting up a development environment on Windows XP/2003. Most probably you can apply them to Windows 2000 as well. Python Mother of all Python-related information is http://www.python.org/. It hosts Python documentation and interpreters for all platforms. Official Python.org document describes an installation of Python 2.4.2 in details. Basically you download an installer and just run it. That's it. Another option is ActiveState's ActivePython. It is very nice. Let's go with it. Eclipse This section was updated on 09/30/2006. Eclipse is the most popular … -
Clickable Bylines
Clickable bylines are the new black in online journalism according to this post and related comments at Poynter. I have to admit that I thought that this was the norm rather than the exception, since this had been the case at the Journal-World long before I arrived in Lawrence. A few days ago Dan asked me how long it would take to whip up per-writer RSS feeds. Thanks to django’s syndication framework the answer was no time at all. Over the next couple of days and with the direction of Dan and David, we tweaked the feeds to include both per-writer and per-photographer feeds. David made it easy to set up search alerts for every time a staff member posted a story. We also updated the staff bio pages to make all of this information easier to get to. Here is an example from a recent story by Joel Mathis: If you click on Joel’s name, you’ll be taken to his bio page. If you click on Contact, you’ll be taken directly to his contact form. There’s nothing new there (for us anyway). The new stuff happens on the bio page: The very top of every bio page contains more … -
WWBD
What Would Bill Do? Bill would increase debt by $851 billion Bill would require universities to disclose deals between professors, businesses Bill would let immigrant students pay in-state tuition Bill would make students wash hands before lunch Bill would halt death penalty for two years Bill would punish profiteering after events like Sept. 11 attacks Bill would aid wild Kansas Bill would throw book at parents of shoplifters Bill would sink utilities’ ‘golden parachutes’ Bill would put bite on eco-terrorists Bill would name VA center for Dole Bill would nullify vaccine lawsuits Bill would allow students to self-administer some medications at school Bill would end tax breaks for non-Missourians Bill would scale back required lobbyist reporting Bill would bar bad reviews of nursing homes from court Bill would create KU-WSU men’s basketball series Bill would make sub-Cabinet meetings public Bill would allow KU workers to leave civil service Bill would establish cemetery oversight, limit predatory fees Bill would make selling imported Canadian drugs illegal Bill would make racial profiling illegal Bill would clarify mental retardation in capital cases Bill would make officials blind to unsightly cell phone towers Bill would continue state vanpool Bill would snap Kansas out of ban … -
Building A Blog with Django #3
NOTE: The Python code in this tutorial no longer works with Django! Please read my new article, a Django Blog Redux, for code that works on newer versions of Django. The rest of this article, such as the theory, is still very much applicable and should be read alongside my newer code. In my two previous posts on this topic (Part 1, Part 2), I walked through creating a simple Blog application using the utilities provided by Django. In this, the third part of the guide, I will show you how to let your visitors leave comments on each of your postings using the Django comments framework. Then, I'll introduce a quick template and urlconf to let you see all of the posts associated with a given tag, so that your users can pick a subject and see what other posts are related to it. I'm going to just assume you've already got Django running, and the previous two parts of this guide completed and working. This section just builds on what has already been done. Adding Comments To Your Blog Django has a very cool (but undocumented, other than a line saying "We have a comments system that's easy … -
Building A Blog with Django #3
NOTE: The Python code in this tutorial no longer works with Django! Please read my new article, a Django Blog Redux, for code that works on newer versions of Django. The rest of this article, such as the theory, is still very much applicable and should be read alongside my … -
Just for always and for ever be with me
Idén is, ahogy már tavaly is, noha ezúttal új köntösben, van szerencsém bemutatni az érdeklődő hallgatóságnak a webes technológiák egy éppen aktuális gyöngyszemét. A 2006-os Magyarországi Web Konferencián Django: Python on Rails címmel fogok előadást tartani. 17-én, szombaton 22.00-kor a Love Alliance Soundsystem lép fel a Sarkban. Február 23-án pedig a General Levy szórakoztatja a [...] -
Ask Google: Python Web Framework Statistics
search-term web groups blog amazon.com-search python zope 8,920,000 20,700 2,294 9 python plone 2,730,000 2,420 784 2 python twisted 2,010,000 14,500 1,396 4 python subway 714,000* 2,380* 626 4 python aquarium 659,000* 4,340* 505 7 python django 543,000 2,660 [...] -
Looking at stats: Google Video
Let's take a look at Snakes & Rubies stats published on Google Video. But before that take a look at previous stats published on 1/27/2006. New stats include 5 more days covering 18 days of January 2006. Title Page views Downloads Snakes and Rubies (Adrian's Django presentation) 190 7 Snakes and Rubies (David's Rails presentation) 169 19 Snakes and Rubies (Q&A session) 89 2 Snakes and Rubies (full) 149 12 Totals 597 40 Lessons: More people read Django Community RSS feed than the news group, which was used for previous announcement. Duh. People followed my advice and went to watch Q&A Session. Very good! I know you were not disappointed. More people decided to watch Adrian's presentation this time than before. It boosted greatly his number of page views comparing to other video fragments. In fact it is the most watched fragment of the series. Adrian, next time I suggest you to start you presentation with your rendition of Super Mario 2 theme. People totally dig it! People watched the whole 3 hour movie instead of equivalent bits and pieces. It is amazing but true. At 30 viewers/day it will overtake individual fragments pretty soon, if not today. People favor … -
Building a Blog with Django #2
NOTE: The Python code in this tutorial no longer works with Django! Please read my new article, a Django Blog Redux, for code that works on newer versions of Django. The rest of this article, such as the theory, is still very much applicable and should be read alongside my newer code. In the previous installment, I covered my database model for this weblog and explained how to get the basic database layout working with the nice Django administration panel. In this posting I will show you how to actually display your blog posts to your website visitors. I'll assume you already have a webserver working, with Django installed, and I assume you've already added a few blog posts using the admin tool discovered in part 1. The first step is telling Django what our URL structure will be. Django does this in a very cool way - it lets us use regular expressions to define what URL paths will be used on our website, and what Python code will be called by users requesting those addresses. To keep this clean I will move all of the blog URL configuration into it's own file. Let's tell Django to use this … -
Building a Blog with Django #2
NOTE: The Python code in this tutorial no longer works with Django! Please read my new article, a Django Blog Redux, for code that works on newer versions of Django. The rest of this article, such as the theory, is still very much applicable and should be read alongside my … -
Python web frameworks
Now after two posts about Guido's quest for the Right Web Framework (1st, 2nd) I am starting to feel like his relay station. But I want to share his comment made in Matt's blog post on Python web framework shootout: Why criticize Django for claiming to be the best? Nobody has denied it, and yet it's criticized as if it were somehow unethical. Frankly, the problem is that there are too many Python web frameworks and wannabees, and if we don't start some kind of shootout, however subjective, we'll never get to market dominance of a few good ones. I'm not saying Django is already the winner -- but we are looking for a winner (or, more likely, a small set of winners) so future developers looking for a Pythonic solution only have to compare a small number of options, all mature, feature-rich, well-supported etc., rather than having to sift through 80+ half-baked solutions. I think it sums up nicely the current state of affairs, and explains why Ruby on Rails is more popular than any of Python web frameworks..
