With the Web being such an integral part of so many people’s lives today, it should come as no surprise that you’ll often find yourself needing to create a web application or website of your own at some point in your career as a developer. So, which framework should you use? A lot of developers consider the Django framework their go-to option when it comes to building robust, scalable applications that are well-suited to high levels of traffic, and with good reason. Here are 10 reasons why you should consider using Django for web development projects of your own in the future.
1) Stable, popular, and maintained
It’s hard to find a more stable, popular, and well-maintained framework easily. But Django is the ideal solution for this. As of January 2015, Django is being used in production by sites like Pinterest, Instagram, Disqus, Mozilla, and The Washington Times. With a project that’s been around since 2005 (originally created by Adrian Holovaty), you can trust that it has proven its merit over time. Django is backed by an enthusiastic community; there are countless tutorials and resources available online from beginner to advanced developer levels. And if you have questions while working on your app? There’s always someone there to help you along your way through Stack Overflow or IRC channels.
When you’re looking for a solution, it’s crucial that you have support from those who made it. With Django, however, you don’t need to worry about that. The community is always ready and willing to help anyone in need. You also have access to a plethora of documentation in case your problem isn’t answered immediately.
2) Batteries included
It is really nice that Django comes with battery included approach. This saves you a lot of time and effort in creating a project from scratch because you don't have to reinvent some wheels. Django also follows the Don't Repeat Yourself principle, which means that if there's already a module/package/library out there, chances are it has been packaged into Django as well! This way you can focus on your application logic rather than reinventing the wheel over and over again (which is what I do most of my time when I'm building web applications). This also helps in keeping your code clean and tidy!
3) Good documentation
It is no surprise that Django has more amazing documentation than most of the other web frameworks. With a framework as powerful and feature-rich as Django, there is a lot of information to cover. The team behind Django does a great job of organizing their docs so you can easily find what you are looking for. They also have several how-to guides that walk you through building your first web application with Django, including tutorials on how to build a simple blogging platform and a social network. These getting started guides are extremely helpful if you're new to web development or just want to learn more about Django.
If you want to learn Django from scratch then I suggest reading their getting started guide. It will give you a brief introduction to what is Django and how can we use it. You can also check out some tutorials on building a basic web application with Django. They are very helpful if you want to build something quick or just want to learn the basics of Django.
4) Great community support
The community support for Django is great. If you have a question, there’s a good chance someone else has already asked it and gotten an answer. There are also tons of tutorials and sample codes you can use to get started quickly. Plus, if you ever run into trouble, Stack Overflow is always there with an answer. It’s hard to beat that kind of support when it comes time to build your website.
Whether it’s bug fixes or improvements, new features, or keeping up compatibility with other programs such as Apache2 and Nginx—people around the world contribute their time in one way or another to keep Django viable. This gives you peace of mind knowing that even though you might not know everything about Django, someone out there likely does.
5) Superb performance by default
Django is a fast framework by default, thanks to its use of Python and Amazon's server infrastructure. Compared with other web frameworks that are written in dynamic languages, Django isn't weighed down by overheads like Java's JVM and NET's CLR. That doesn't mean you can ignore performance optimization altogether, however; it's important to benchmark your code, run auto-caching systems (like Django does), minify assets, and avoid inefficient requests. But if you're looking for an out-of-the-box solution that handles many of these issues automatically, Django is a great option.
6) Security
The most annoying thing when building a web application is ensuring security. A Lot of your time will be spent on writing code that will prevent malicious attacks, and even more, time will be spent debugging it later. Django has built-in tools that you can use to secure your site from intruders, and they are very easy to use. You don’t have to worry about SQL injections or cross-site scripting because Django takes care of them for you! It also comes with an inbuilt template language that prevents XSS attacks from happening. In addition, Django has an admin interface that is completely secured by default so you don’t have to worry about hackers getting access through there either!
7) A good balance between flexibility and ease of use
Django makes it easy to write powerful web applications. By decoupling business logic from your templates, you can more easily reuse code in new projects and applications. Django’s object-relational mapper (ORM) provides a convenient interface to data stored in most common database engines, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and Oracle. At its core, however, Django is just Python with some convenience features such as URL routing and generic views that make common tasks easier than writing directly in Python. This gives developers using Django excellent flexibility and results in fewer lines of code overall. In practice, you get something that feels like a framework without much of a learning curve—an ideal combination of ease of use and power.
8) It’s Python, so it's easy to learn
One of Python’s best-known strengths, especially among beginners, is its simplicity. As a dynamic language that follows a simple syntax, Python requires less code to execute than other programming languages. This means you can build an entire application with fewer lines of code in Python than in other languages, helping speed up development time and making it easier to build web applications quickly and easily. Many web developers who have moved from more complex languages to Python report that it was much easier to learn Python than another coding language. Of course, you don’t need to be a beginner programmer to enjoy what python has to offer — even experienced coders will find things they like about it! Because python is easy to learn, the Django framework is great for people just starting out with web development.
9) Object Relational Mapping(ORM)
ORM is another advantage of Dango, ORM (Object Relational Mapper) refers to a process or mechanism that enables you to access and manipulate data stored in a relational database using code. It’s used to simplify database interactions, eliminate redundant data-manipulation code and improve overall program efficiency. If your web application interacts with any relational databases, then it would be beneficial if your application includes an ORM as part of its structure
With an ORM, developers can write less code and focus more on business logic. Moreover, there are many advantages to using an ORM over a raw SQL query. The first benefit is that it reduces code complexity and makes it easier to read and maintain. Another important benefit is that it abstracts your database schema so you don’t have to worry about creating foreign keys or adding indexes when you’re creating your tables. When using an ORM like Django’s, you just need to tell it what fields you want in your table and let it do all of that work for you! That way you can focus on what really matters: writing great code!
10) Unit testing and functional testing frameworks built-in.
As a web developer, you know that testing can consume up to 30% of development time. Using a framework like Django means you don’t have to code every functionality from scratch because it provides plenty of tools and utilities that make sense.
Django comes with built-in unit testing and functional testing frameworks. Unit tests are good for developers to ensure their code doesn’t break anything, while functional tests (also known as integration tests) test that your software works correctly. A lot of web apps have complex architectures and require a whole load of different components to come together in order to work properly; when these components interact there’s always a chance that something will go wrong. Writing both unit and functional tests can help mitigate these risks by making sure that particular parts of your application aren’t dependent on external dependencies or other frameworks being installed. If your project breaks—which it probably won’t if you write solid code—then you know exactly where it broke and how to fix it quickly.
Conclusion
When you need to build a web application that you plan on scaling, it’s important to choose a framework that can provide you with those capabilities. The Django framework allows developers to work quickly and collaboratively while adhering to common standards and best practices. Whether you’re starting out with your first web app or are looking to build something bigger, scalable, and more complex than ever before—the Django framework may be just what you need.
