Introduction to Django
This book is about Django, a Web development framework that saves you time and makes Web development a joy. Using Django, you can build and maintain high-quality Web applications with minimal fuss.
At its best, Web development is an exciting, creative act; at its worst, it can be a repetitive, frustrating nuisance. Django lets you focus on the fun stuff — the crux of your Web application — while easing the pain of the repetitive bits. In doing so, it provides high-level abstractions of common Web development patterns,
shortcuts for frequent programming tasks, and clear conventions for how to solve problems. At the same time, Django tries to stay out of your way, letting you work outside the scope of the framework as needed.
The goal of this book is to make you a Django expert. The focus is twofold. First, we explain, in depth, what Django does and how to build Web applications with it. Second, we discuss higher-level concepts where appropriate, answering the question “How can I apply these tools effectively in my own projects?” By reading
this book, you’ll learn the skills needed to develop powerful Web sites quickly, with code that is clean and easy to maintain
In this chapter, we provide a high-level overview of Django.