Django community: Community blog posts RSS
This page, updated regularly, aggregates Community blog posts from the Django community.
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Introducing django-lazysignup
django-lazysignup is a Django application that was partly inspired by a talk that Simon Willison gave at EuroPython a few years back (perhaps 2008, or 2009?) and partly to scratch an itch I had with an application I was building at the time. The problem it tries to solve is that making users sign up with a web site just to try out your app is quite a high barrier - potential users just bounce right off that registration form. I'd seen some efforts to solve this problem before. Most seemed to involve stashing the data for some predetermined part of the website somewhere (often in the session) and then reconstituting it into real application data when the user eventually bites the bullet and signed up. This worked OK, but you had to write it anew for every web site, as clearly the data you'd want to store would change from site to site. You also ended up effectively developing a miniature version of your site that would work with some limited data set. This didn't really seem good enough. So I started wondering - what if we just created a real user for every person who visited the site? … -
Introducing django-lazysignup
django-lazysignup is a Django application that was partly inspired by a talk that Simon Willison gave at EuroPython a few years back (perhaps 2008, or 2009?) and partly to scratch an itch I had with an application I was building at the time. The problem it tries to solve is that making users sign up with a web site just to try out your app is quite a high barrier - potential users just bounce right off that registration form. I'd seen some efforts to solve this problem before. Most seemed to involve stashing the data for some predetermined part of the website somewhere (often in the session) and then reconstituting it into real application data when the user eventually bites the bullet and signed up. This worked OK, but you had to write it anew for every web site, as clearly the data you'd want to store would change from site to site. You also ended up effectively developing a miniature version of your site that would work with some limited data set. This didn't really seem good enough. So I started wondering - what if we just created a real user for every person who visited the site? … -
Introducing django-lazysignup
django-lazysignup is a Django application that was partly inspired by a talk that Simon Willison gave at EuroPython a few years back (perhaps 2008, or 2009?) and partly to scratch an itch I had with an application I was building at the time. The problem it tries to solve is that making users sign up with a web site just to try out your app is quite a high barrier - potential users just bounce right off that registration form. I'd seen some efforts to solve this problem before. Most seemed to involve stashing the data for some predetermined part of the website somewhere (often in the session) and then reconstituting it into real application data when the user eventually bites the bullet and signed up. This worked OK, but you had to write it anew for every web site, as clearly the data you'd want to store would change from site to site. You also ended up effectively developing a miniature version of your site that would work with some limited data set. This didn't really seem good enough. So I started wondering - what if we just created a real user for every person who visited the site? … -
longjmp() 2011 - Impromptu Party
Lawrence has been having a bunch of downtown block parties lately, which are always great fun. The last couple of days the Kansas Relays have been going on and the long jump event was setup directly outside our office windows. Since we had such a great view we quickly through together a little party and invited all of our geeky friends to come watch, we had a pretty good turn out (free beer works apparently). Here are some photos I took from our office. You can find more professional quality photos of the event here. Thanks to everyone for coming out! -
I teach Python and Django
This is one of those blog posts where a developer announces that he/she is teaching for a whole week. The difference is that in this post I'm going to explain why I want to teach and why you should take my classes or send your staff.I'm an experienced instructor.I've taught a variety of things for over 20 years, including in alphabetical order: Best practices, Django, English, JQuery, martial arts, Pinax, Python, Selenium, soccer, and unit testing. I speak clearly, get across technical points well, and love the material. I also know how to provide an early foundation of knowledge and then expand upon it for maximum benefit.I don't just dump knowledge into the heads of my students; I take the time to teach them common standards and best practices, so their code is extendable and maintainable.I'm not alone. Audrey Roy, co-founder of Cartwheel, leader of PyLadies and Django Packages, who has tutored and lab assisted at MIT will be teaching with me, meaning the teacher-to-student ratio is kept at 5:1 for our first offering. I want you to surpass me.After teaching various things for many years I've found it a point of honor and immense pride when a student shines better than … -
Upcoming Python and Django classes
This is one of those blog posts where a developer announces that he/she is teaching for a whole week. The difference is that in this post I'm going to explain why I want to teach and why you should take my classes or send your staff.I'm an experienced instructor.I've taught a variety of things for over 23 years, including in alphabetical order: Best practices, Django, English, Java, JQuery, martial arts, Pinax, Selenium, soccer, and unit testing. I speak clearly, get across technical points well, and love the material. I also know how to provide an early foundation of knowledge and then expand upon it for maximum benefit.I don't just dump knowledge into the heads of my students; I take the time to teach them common standards and best practices, so their code is extendable and maintainable.I'm not alone. Audrey Roy, who has tutored and lab assisted at MIT will be teaching with me, meaning the teacher-to-student ratio is kept at 5-1 for our first offering.I want you to surpass me.After teaching various things for many years I've found it a point of honor and immense pride when a student shines better than myself. I'm not one of those teachers who holds … -
Ken Cochrane | Blog | My Day in Gondor.io
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Djangocong 2.0, le bilan
4 jours après la fin des Cong, il est temps pour moi de faire le bilan de cette deuxième est, en tout cas à mon sens, excellente édition. Les Congs en quelques chiffres : 11 conférences le matin 12 slots de barcamp l'après-midi 1 app releasée durant les Congs 1 doc de bonne pratique lancée 75 personnes le samedi matin dans ... -
Solving “Caught TypeError while rendering: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer”
I’ve been working on a little side project in Django 1.3 and have run into a couple instances in the Django admin where I would get the error: "Caught TypeError while rendering: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer" I did a little Bing-ing (my new default search engine — Google is too big, powerful and, dare I say, evil) and found the following solution from Ryan Brady. For a Bing search of “django admin ‘Caught TypeError while rendering: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer‘” there were only 4 results, but lucky for me, Ryan’s solved my problem. Have you ever edited your models.py file and shortly after when trying to see the change list for a model in the admin site you received this error? Caught an exception while rendering: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, NoneType found I did today and it was one of those “bonehead” moments. You know, the one where you’ve been coding for a bit and for some reason make a simple error that leaves you thinking “I’ve done that exact same action a hundred times, why would I get an error this time?”, when you realize you made a really simple … -
What is Gondor
“What is Gondor?”, asks a friend of mine who doesn’t know the difference between Django and Rails and probably thinks that Python is a creature found at the zoo’s reptile exhibit. To explain Gondor to someone who isn’t a programmer can be a bit tricky, if not near the impossible. I realize that I carry a lot of presuppositions when explaining Gondor even when trying to be non-technical. To get around that, I think I just need to try my best and explain some of these pre-requisites, if you will, to understanding Gondor and why it delivers so much value. First, Gondor solves a problem called “deployment” in software development circles. This basically means taking software that has been written in one place (e.g. my laptop) and putting it in a place where others can use it (e.g. on a web server). There are a lot of steps involved in just getting the software updated on the web server in between updates to the software. In addition, to the act of updating the software, it would require the developer or another person, to be skilled at setting up web servers, keeping them updated with security patches, etc. Secondly, Gondor, through … -
What is Gondor
“What is Gondor?”, asks a friend of mine who doesn’t know the difference between Django and Rails and probably thinks that Python is a creature found at the zoo’s reptile exhibit. To explain Gondor to someone who isn’t a programmer can be a bit tricky, if not near the impossible. I realize that I carry a lot of presuppositions when explaining Gondor even when trying to be non-technical. To get around that, I think I just need to try my best and explain some of these pre-requisites, if you will, to understanding Gondor and why it delivers so much value. First, Gondor solves a problem called “deployment” in software development circles. This basically means taking software that has been written in one place (e.g. my laptop) and putting it in a place where others can use it (e.g. on a web server). There are a lot of steps involved in just getting the software updated on the web server in between updates to the software. In addition, to the act of updating the software, it would require the developer or another person, to be skilled at setting up web servers, keeping them updated with security patches, etc. Secondly, Gondor, through … -
What is Gondor
“What is Gondor?”, asks a friend of mine who doesn’t know the difference between Django and Rails and probably thinks that Python is a creature found at the zoo’s reptile exhibit. To explain Gondor to someone who isn’t a programmer can be a bit tricky, if not near the impossible. I realize that I carry a lot of presuppositions when explaining Gondor even when trying to be non-technical. To get around that, I think I just need to try my best and explain some of these pre-requisites, if you will, to understanding Gondor and why it delivers so much value. First, Gondor solves a problem called “deployment” in software development circles. This basically means taking software that has been written in one place (e.g. my laptop) and putting it in a place where others can use it (e.g. on a web server). There are a lot of steps involved in just getting the software updated on the web server in between updates to the software. In addition, to the act of updating the software, it would require the developer or another person, to be skilled at setting up web servers, keeping them updated with security patches, etc. Secondly, Gondor, through … -
Mac, Python 2.7, MySQL AND python-mysql
I'm switching jobs (again!) and upgrading from a Dell-Hell-windows-machine to a Macbook Pro, and so far it has been both love and hate. Love because of the magsafe power connector and because of the Appstore, hate because of the non-existent application installation tool like apt-get for Debian/Ubuntu. This is a howto of how to get a working django-environment up and running. This includes: Python 2.7 Mysql 5.5 Python-mysql Pip Virtualenv Virtualenvwrapper Download and install python 2.7 from http://www.python.org/download/. I chose the 64-bit... -
Mac, Python 2.7, MySQL AND python-mysql
I'm switching jobs (again!) and upgrading from a Dell-Hell-windows-machine to a Macbook Pro, and so far it has been both love and hate. Love because of the magsafe power connector and because of the Appstore, hate because of the non-existent application installation tool like apt-get for Debian/Ubuntu. This is a howto of how to get a working django-environment up and running. This includes: Python 2.7 Mysql 5.5 Python-mysql Pip Virtualenv Virtualenvwrapper Download and install python 2.7 from http://www.python.org/download/. I chose the 64-bit... -
Django Project Release History
Django Project Release History ============================== I was curious so I went ahead and found out all of the official `Django `_. releases and when they were released and how long it took between each release. There have been 7 major releases and 8 minor releases in the past 5 years. I wonder how this compares to other projects like `Ruby on Rails `_. ============ ============= ============================== Release # Date # of months since last release ------------ ------------- ------------------------------ Open Sourced Jul 15, 2005 n/a 0.90 Nov 16, 2005 4 0.91 Jan 11, 2006 2 0.95 Jul 29, 2006 6 0.95.1 Jan 21, 2007 6 0.96 Mar 23, 2007 2 0.96.1 Oct 26, 2007 7 0.96.2 May 14, 2008 7 **1.0** Sep 3, 2008 4 1.0.1 Nov 15, 2008 2 1.0.2 Nov 18, 2008 0 **1.1** Jul 29, 2009 8 1.1.1 Oct 9, 2009 3 1.1.2 May 17, 2010 7 1.1.3 Dec 22, 2010 7 1.1.4 Feb 8, 2011 2 **1.2** May 17, 2010 7 1.2.1 May 18, 2010 0 1.2.2 Sep 8, 2010 4 1.2.3 Sep 10, 2010 0 1.2.4 Dec 22, 2010 3 1.2.5 Feb 8, 2011 2 **1.3** Mar 23, 2011 10 ============ ============= ============================== -
Django 1.2 has been Released!
I have been waiting for this release for a while now, mostly because it includes some of the features I have been dying to get my hands on. The ones I like the most are support for multiple databases smart-if template tag The new Email Backends relaxed requirements for usernames. Here is a list for some of the features, and a little bit about each one. Support for multiple databases Django 1.2 adds the ability to use more than one database in your Django project. Queries can be issued at a specific database with the using() method on QuerySet objects. Individual objects can be saved to a specific database by providing a using argument when you call save(). Model validation Model instances now have support for validating their own data, and both model and form fields now accept configurable lists of validators specifying reusable, encapsulated validation behavior. Note, however, that validation must still be performed explicitly. Simply invoking a model instance’s save() method will not perform any validation of the instance’s data. Improved CSRF protection Django now has much improved protection against Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. This type of attack occurs when a malicious Web site contains a link, … -
Django 1.3 has been released
It includes the following: Class-based views Logging Extended static files handling unittest2 support Transaction context managers Configurable delete-cascade Contextual markers and comments for translatable strings Improvements to built-in template tags Caching changes For more information checkout the official release notes: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/releases/1.3/ -
My Experiences with ep.io
Over the last decade I have deployed my applications many different ways, I have used, self managed dedicated servers, fully managed dedicated servers, Virtual Privates Servers from Linode, RackSpace and Amazon, shared hosting from webfaction, and I also used Google App Engine. I have learned a lot of things along the way, but the one thing I learned the most is that managing the server and keeping it up and running isn't fun. The fun part is writing the applications, and watching them grow as people start to use them. If there was only a way to write the application and then let someone else manage all of the server stuff for you, for a reasonable price. The Ruby on Rails folks have had services like this for a while, both Heroku and EngineYard are pretty popular and make hosting your Rails applications much easier. When Heroku was bought by salesforce.com for $212M, it opened people eyes, and started to get them thinking. Why can't we do that for Django? I have been wanting to build a Django service like this for a while now, but with limited time and not knowing where to begin, my idea went no where. … -
National Geographic Education Site Launch!
National Geographic creates educational programs, reference material and news used by teachers, students and parents in the United States and across the world to promote geo-literacy. And now this content is available online using a custom CMS built with Django. One of the challenges of creating this site was NatGeo’s unique requirement for the CMS. Much of the content is available in special versions for each of the 5 audience types targeted by NatGeo. Not only is the content often different depending on audience type, but the look of the page and even the individual content items available are different, depending on who you are. In addition to the different audience types, many CMS fields support different text difficulties for novice to expert readers. For example, see the teacher's version versus the family version of the same biodiversity encyclopedic entry. To accomplish this, we extended the Django admin to allow for multiple audience versions of text to be created within one text field. The default version is stored in the model’s field and all the other versions are stored in a generic detail table used by all the models that allow for audience aware fields. The CMS itself, the foundation … -
Mock Django Request for testing
When testing your applications I sometimes find myself needing to mock a request object. Unfortunately it is quite hard to find a good fake request factory which mimics a normal request. Django has a class included for this purpose called RequestFactory. However it doesn’t fake the session object, breaking most of my test code. To fix this I wrote a tiny snippet implementing the RequestFactory with session and user support. Hope it helps :) from django.core.handlers.base import BaseHandler from django.test.client import RequestFactory class RequestMock(RequestFactory): def request(self, **request): "Construct a generic request object." request = RequestFactory.request(self, **request) handler = BaseHandler() handler.load_middleware() for middleware_method in handler._request_middleware: if middleware_method(request): raise Exception("Couldn't create request mock object - " "request middleware returned a response") return request See the gist here. Share and Enjoy: -
The state of eCommerce in Django
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The state of eCommerce in Django
So, you’re looking for a reusable, extendable, pony-powered eCommerce app? Here’s what’s out there: Satchmo Most well known. Huge, does everything you and your brother could ever want, but the client, that’s another story. So, you’re in the code, and hours go by because the Product models.py has 1570 lines and it turns out it was a problem with PriceAdjustmentCalc, whatever that does. Lightning Fast Shop Full blown solution (like satchmo), with batteries included, docs, tests, demo, and a lot of code. So regardless whether you need it or not, you get it all. And then, if you need something different, you’ll have to ack and grep a bit. Satchless Still in early development, but very straightforward and well documented so far. Actively developed and a good starting point for most use cases. Very pluggable and customizable products, categories and variants. Same dude also made mamona, which is a nice payment abstraction mechanism. Plata Made by the FeinCMS people. A pretty solid, simple, pluggable alternative for a “shop.” docs, tests, nice code. It makes you write your own urls and views by leveraging some of the model interface it has. The examples are pretty simple and only offer a product … -
The state of eCommerce in Django
So, you’re looking for a reusable, extendable, pony-powered eCommerce app? Here’s what’s out there: Satchmo Most well known. Huge, does everything you and your brother could ever want, but the client, that’s another story. So, you’re in the code, and hours go by because the Product models.py has 1570 lines and it turns out it was a problem with PriceAdjustmentCalc, whatever that does. Lightning Fast Shop Full blown solution (like satchmo), with batteries included, docs, tests, demo, and a lot of code. So regardless whether you need it or not, you get it all. And then, if you need something different, you’ll have to ack and grep a bit. Satchless Still in early development, but very straightforward and well documented so far. Actively developed and a good starting point for most use cases. Very pluggable and customizable products, categories and variants. Same dude also made mamona, which is a nice payment abstraction mechanism. Plata Made by the FeinCMS people. A pretty solid, simple, pluggable alternative for a “shop.” docs, tests, nice code. It makes you write your own urls and views by leveraging some of the model interface it has. The examples are pretty simple and only offer a product … -
The state of eCommerce in Django
So, you're looking for a reusable, extendable, pony-powered eCommerce app? Here's what's out there: Satchmo Most well known. Huge, does everything you and your brother could ever want, but the client, that's another story. So, you're in the code, and hours go by because the Product models.py has 1570 lines and it turns out it was a problem with PriceAdjustmentCalc, whatever that does. Lightning Fast Shop Full blown solution (like satchmo), with batteries included, docs, tests, demo, and a lot of code. So regardless whether you need it or not, you get it all. And then, if you need something different, you'll have to ack and grep a bit. Satchless Still in early development, but very straightforward and well documented so far. Actively developed and a good starting point for most use cases. Very pluggable and customizable products, categories and variants. Same dude also made mamona, which is a nice payment abstraction mechanism. Plata Made by the FeinCMS people. A pretty solid, simple, pluggable alternative for a "shop." docs, tests, nice code. It makes you write your own urls and views by leveraging some of the model interface it has. The examples are pretty simple and only offer a product … -
A Guide to Testing in Django #2
A Guide to Testing in Django #2