A Brief Intro: Python and Django
If you are new to the programming world a common question that may arise in your mind would be what is python??? What does a snake have to do with programming?
Well, Python is a programming language developed by Guido van Rossum, that got conceived in the late 1980s. Van Rossum needed a name that was short, unique, and slightly mysterious. At the time he was reading the “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, a comedy series, so he decided to call the language Python.
Python is a high-level interpreted general-purpose programming language, which emphasizes code readability with its simple and easy to learn syntax.
Below are some examples of how python is different from other languages.
JAVA program to print “Hello, World!”
C program to print “Hello World”
Python program to print “Hello, world!”
From the above code snippets, you can see Python is very easy to read and understand.
Though it’s simple and easy, it still has some disadvantages.
Pros of Python:
- Python is very simple and easy to learn and understand.
- Being simple and easy it has a low learning curve and improves the productivity to develop and debug.
- It has a very good set of inbuilt libraries and also the developer community provides external libraries with great features
- Python is a platform-independent portable language that works as it is on different platforms without any change.
Cons of Python:
- Though Python is simple, easy, and fast to develop it is an interpreted language that incurs speed limitations.
- Python has significant threading limitations as it has a Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) that doesn't allow executing more than one thread at a given time.
- Python is not memory efficient . It uses a large amount of memory, which can be a disadvantage while building memory-optimized applications.
- Python is a dynamically typed language, i.e., the data type of a variable can change anytime. This often leads to Runtime Errors, and hence thorough testing is always required.
Python Applications:
- Web Development is a very common application of python. With the availability of frameworks like flask, bottle, pyramid, and Django the pythonic web-development has become very convenient.
- Python is also used for writing scripts . Such scripts are often run using crontab.
- Python is a very popular language when it comes to Data Science — including machine learning, data analysis, and data visualization. It has a very good combination of tools and libraries which ease the work, such as Jupyter notebooks.
- A lot of desktop applications also use python. Libraries like Tkinter, PyGUI, and Kivy empowers you with the simplicity and ease to write your code
The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines | Django
Selecting a suitable web development framework is a big deal. There are multiple frameworks available in the market, each serving different project needs. Django is one of such frameworks and one of the most popular web development tools.
“Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. Built by experienced developers, it takes care of much of the hassle of Web development, so you can focus on writing your app without needing to reinvent the wheel. It’s fast, secure, scalable, free, and open source.” -Official Website
Many famous websites and applications use Django, such as Pinterest, The Washington Post, Dropbox, YouTube, Quora, etc.
Setting up Django
Install Django pip package
Create a Django project
Start the Django server
With just these 3 steps you can install, setup, and start your Django server.
Django follows an MVT architecture. Model, View, and Templates.
Flow chart representing MTV architecture
Models are the Django representation of tables, views listen to the API end-points, and templates are the HTML web-pages. Django provides a very flexible and easy ORM in which using models all the database operations can be managed. It has a concept of ‘apps’. We can breakdown our features into different apps. Usually, every app has its own DB models that it manages.
A few reasons to use Django:
- An ‘app’ for everything . Django provides a very well structured and maintainable app-based framework, in which all related functionalities can be grouped into separate apps, which independent of one another.
- Django calls itself a ‘batteries-included’ framework , this means that Django comes with a wide range of sufficient features and functionalities. So, instead of writing new functionality, it is possible to just import it.
- Django implicitly provides prevention from common attacks like Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) and SQL Injections .
- Django is very flexible and dynamic . The framework can be quickly and easily configured to match specific needs.
Final Words:
Django, created in 2003 by developers at a Newspaper company, has become a popular choice among independent developers and big organizations. This framework allows for building robust and large-scale applications. But sometimes being more developer-friendly can also be a drawback and despite all the benefits, it might not be the right choice for all.
We at CodeParva are leveraging the power of Python and Django, at the backend, to build our own seamless and smooth solution for the global self-storage industry. Join us here
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