What Is Django and Why Use It

Django is a high-level Python web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. Created in 2003 and released publicly in 2005, Django was built by developers at a newspaper company who needed to build feature-rich web applications quickly. Its design philosophy — "batteries included" — means it ships with an ORM, admin interface, authentication system, form handling, and much more out of the box. Django follows the Model-View-Template (MVT) architectural pattern. Models define your data structures and interact with the database through Django's ORM. Views contain the business logic and return HTTP responses. Templates are HTML files with a templating language that renders dynamic data. This separation of concerns makes Django projects easier to maintain and scale. Django is trusted by large-scale platforms including Instagram, Pinterest, Disqus, and Mozilla. Its strong security defaults (CSRF protection, SQL injection prevention, XSS escaping), active community, and comprehensive documentation make it an excellent choice for building anything from a simple blog to a complex API-driven web application.

Example

# Install Django and start a new project
# pip install django

# Create a new Django project
django-admin startproject mysite

# Project structure created:
# mysite/
#   manage.py          <- CLI utility for the project
#   mysite/
#     __init__.py
#     settings.py      <- Project configuration
#     urls.py          <- Root URL configuration
#     asgi.py
#     wsgi.py

# Navigate into the project
cd mysite

# Create a new application inside the project
python manage.py startapp blog

# App structure created:
# blog/
#   migrations/
#   __init__.py
#   admin.py           <- Register models with admin
#   apps.py            <- App configuration
#   models.py          <- Database models
#   tests.py
#   views.py           <- Request handlers

# Run the development server
python manage.py runserver
# Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/

HTML

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Related Resources

Django Reference

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Django How-To Guides

Step-by-step practical guides

Django Exercises

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