Django rest_framework DefaultRouter() class vs normal url - django

Question

I'm using REST in Django, And I couldn't understand what is the main difference between classic URL and instantiating DefaultRouter() for registering URL by ViewSet.
I have a model:
class Article(models.Model):
title = models.CharField()
body = models.TextField()
author = models.ForeignKey()
Serializing model like this:
from blog.models import Article
class ArticleSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = Article
fields = ['title', 'body', 'author']
View Class:
from blog.models import Article
from rest_framework import viewsets
from .serializers import ArticleSerializer
class ArticleViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
serializer_class = ArticleSerializer
queryset = Article.objects.all()
and URLS:
router = DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'articles', ArticleViewSet)
urlpatterns = [
path('', include(router.urls)),
]
Is it possible to use classic URL in URLS.py instead of instantiating the object for a ViewSet like this:
urlpatterns = [
path('api/', 'views.someAPI'),
]
I just know HTTP method in ViewSet translate methods to retrieve, list and etc...
The Question is can we use traditional(Classic) URL style in this situation, Should we ?
Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Well, in a nutshell as a django developer it is notorious how it is hard to deal with normal urls in django in some cases. Every now and again we get confused with the id type of the detail page that in some case are strings or integers with its regex, and so on.
For example:
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^(?P<content_type_name>[a-zA-z-_]+)$', views.content_type, name = 'content_type'),
]
# or
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^(?P<content_type_name>comics|articles|videos)$', views.content_type, name='content_type'),
]
Not mentioning that in almost every case its needed to have two urls like:
URL pattern: ^users/$ Name: 'user-list'
URL pattern: ^users/{pk}/$ Name: 'user-detail'
THE MAIN DIFFERENCE
However, using DRF routers the example above is done automatically:
# using routers -- myapp/urls.py
router.register(r"store", StoreViewSet, basename="store")
How django will understand it:
^store/$ [name='store-list']
^store\.(?P<format>[a-z0-9]+)/?$ [name='store-list']
^store/(?P<pk>[^/.]+)/$ [name='store-detail']
^store/(?P<pk>[^/.]+)\.(?P<format>[a-z0-9]+)/?$ [name='store-detail']
See how much job and headache you have saved with a line of code only?
To contrast, according to DRF documentation the routers is a type of standard to make it easy to declare urls. A pattern brought from ruby-on-rails.
Here is what the documentation details:
Resource routing allows you to quickly declare all of the common
routes for a given resourceful controller. Instead of declaring
separate routes for your index... a resourceful route declares them in
a single line of code.
— Ruby on Rails Documentation
Django rest framework documentation:
Some Web frameworks such as Rails provide functionality for
automatically determining how the URLs for an application should be
mapped to the logic that deals with handling incoming requests.
REST framework adds support for automatic URL routing to Django, and
provides you with a simple, quick and consistent way of wiring your
view logic to a set of URLs.
For more details follow the django rest framework documentation.