I'm about to develop a web site that works closely with database attributes.
It needs to fetch required data from the db based on search criteria and to display them as table.
I was studying django and feel that I'm ready to start the development process.
Now, I need to decide rather I choose to go with Pinax or just pure Django with apps that suit my needs.
i do want some social functionality like sending notifications to friends and maybe later a forum on site.
What do you think? should i go with pure Django or should i give Pinax a try?
Pinax wont run without django so you need to use django either way. If you want to create sitw with social networking feature pinax is a good option. If you just need user management, django has it built in.
Related
I am setting up a server for my android chat app. It is a pure group chat i.e. each message will be sent to multiple users and not just a single user
Since I have a background in Python, I would prefer to pick a python based web framework.
So as I was searching, I came across "Django" and "DjangoREST". After reading a lot about them, it seems that DRF (Django Rest Framework) is a RESTful implementation of Django and will let you make applications that are light and scalable.
Since this is for the first time that I am setting up a web service, I can not relate or understand this completely. Also, I feel that what I want to accomplish, could be accomplished on either of the 2 platforms.
Therefore, it will be great if some one could share some very basic and key differences(if any) between the 2 frameworks. So that I can decide which on to pick up.
There are no differences. Django is a web framework and Django Rest Framework makes it easier to create REST services in Django itself.
It doesn't replace Django. It adds to it.
I have read a couple of articles about using new JS frameworks like Backbone.js or Ember.js
I have come up to this statement:
If I use a JS framework like Backbone.js/Ember.js, I then move the logic from the back-end (Django) to the front-end.
Therefore, will Django actually be used only for its Models?
Does that mean that Django Views and Django Template are not needed anymore and the Django back-end is kinda turn into a "basic" REST API that will be consumed by the front end.
Do you agree? Is it then the purpose of Django in this case?
Is turning the django backend into a REST API one of the most suitable use case when using a framework like Backbone.js/Ember.js for the front-end?
Thanks.
Django is perfectly fine to be used this way, you still get the admin, the models, the orm and all the third-party plugins. However, it isn't blazingly fast, so if you're doing simple document level, non-relational REST mapping, you might wan't to look into node.js and mongoDB for instance.
If you're sticking with django (like we are, we like the structure it gives us), you can use one of the REST plugins:
Django Rest Framework A perfect match since DRF 2.0, under very active development!
Django Tastypie (checkout backbone-tastypie.js for integration)
Django Piston (might be a bit stale or has development picked up lately?)
If you only want to work with frontend development, checkout the Backend-as-a-Service places like cloudmine.me or firebase.com that handle all backend stuff for you, for a price of course.
Django may seem unnecessary once you start thinking about single page solutions and Javascript applications, but if you want your site to be 'fail proof' it wouldn't be impossible to develop both a client side Javascript version of the site as well as a backend django side incase the user, or your site's javascript, fails at some level. Of course this requires creating your site twice, and probably isn't needed in the age of modern browsers, but such would be one of the few instances where you would mix the two for a complete solution.
Yes, that's about it. You can use it to manage authentication to resources and such and maybe use a main view for your application but you won't need to use the server side templating since these frameworks are made to work with json/xml response.
That's why a lot of people are moving to lighter backend/backbone or ember combo instead of a complete solution like django. You can also use your django for caching json response which makes your application appears faster.
We are doing that and use django-piston to make it easier on you.
Normally you make your entire website under Django and only one page will be a "single app page" using backbone.js, usually that page is a very interactive page, with lots of small updates that occur frequently and need to be shown very fast to the user. This page, because of the large number of changes and user interactions is constructed on the client-side so that you are using his PC resources and not the server's, the rest of the pages can use django because it offers you a very stable and secure framework for the server-side
According to the documentation, an app is a module which deals a well defined operation.
Is it correct to think about an app as a REST-based service? or is it mandatory to use some framework like piston or tastypie to create a RESTful web service around an app?
Generally, no. Django app is really just a python module, with some interfaces to django internals like models, urls, admin discovery etc.
To implement REST, you still have to manage network communications via views, and this is where you either write your own code or use the help of tastypie/piston/etc.
Please do have a look at django-rest-framework, I just stepped over from tastypie to this new framework, works great!
http://django-rest-framework.org/
Especially the class based views and the browsable api! and may other advantages (e..g. to upload images)
And to answer your question:
The rest-base service is an extra entry to your webapp.
I made some api's for some projects using the django-rest-framework, most project members were surprised they got a webapp as an extra, while it was actually the other way around. You make a django app (with views models and urls) and on top off that you make the api.
I have an application built with Django. Part of it relies on data that I aggregate from other websites. Wondering how I should approach building the scraper/aggregator.
The advantages I see of building it as a Django app is
the ability to use Django's models & database API
the ability to use Django's other methods
On the other hand I think the disadvantage would be scalability in the long run.
Should I build the scraper/aggregator as an app in my Django project or as a separate script that runs on its own?
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Neither of your points require it to run within Django. And since it will not be dependent on the web/HTTP interface, having it be a separate module is the only option that makes sense.
I just have published a Django app django-dynamic-scraper on GitHub, which is build on top of the scraping framework Scrapy and where you can build Scrapy scrapers in the Django admin and use Django model classes to store your scraped data, maybe this is of some use for people with similar problems.
If it's a django app, it will only run when someone loads the page. That could slow the loading.
Making another script could be a nicer idea but could produce inaccurate data.
I think it actually depends on the context.
I was hoping to get some suggestions on some best approaches to develop a multi tenant Django project on Google AppEngine.
Some Thoughts to Consider.
I would assume using djnago.contrib.sites is a must.
I would like to use existing applications such as django-profiles and django-registration, I know their models would need porting.
Can multiple domains be pointed to the GAE App and the site be automatically chosen from the request headers?
IF not multiple domains, is there a way to say take a request say to www.example.com/tenantA/login and www.example.com/tenantB/login and push them to one view but with knowledge tennant without changing all the views, maybe using custom managers to hide the complexity from the views.
Generally hoping this will be a discussion of any approaches you have taken in the past or plan to take.
Looking forward to any Comments/Answers.
Regards
Mark
I can answer the App Engine questions for you, though I don't know the Django ones:
Yes, anyone can point a domain to your app using Google Apps, with the 'add services' option, entering your App ID when prompted. You can then check the 'Host' header to determine what site you want to use.
You can hide information per-tenant by using hooks to automatically insert the host in entities and queries: http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/hooks.html
Today Google released SDK 1.3.6, which includes multi-tenancy baked right into the solution.
http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2010/08/multi-tenancy-support-high-performance_17.html