The Django programming language is a Web development framework that is very efficient and user friendly. Django helps new users to easily build and maintain high-quality Web applications. It offers clear conventions for problem solving, common Web development patterns and shortcuts for frequent programming tasks. The Django programming language has quickly become one of the most popular Web development tools for content heavy websites.
A Brief History of Django
Django’s framework was created to streamline the Web application development process. Most web developers create applications from scratch only to realize that their code is similar to previous creations, which causes them to refactor their new code so that it is similar to older applications. This basically creates a standardized Web framework. Django was developed in 2003 by Web developers who were working for news-based websites. They found that the only way that they could build maintainable applications under extreme deadlines was to develop a time-saving Web development framework. Django was officially released in 2005 as an open source software and is named after Django Reinhardt who was a famous jazz guitarist.
Why Django is Popular
Because Django was created for content rich news websites, it is well suited for sites full of dynamic content and database-driven information. This includes popular commerce sites like eBay and Craigslist. Django was created through codes designed to solve real world problems, so it isn’t an abstract academic exercise or an over-developed commercial product. Django is solely focused on solving common Web development problems, so Django is updated and improved by a global community of Web developers on a weekly basis. Django’s framework is designed to save developers time, perform well under heavy content loads and produce applications that are easy to maintain. In the modern commercial world, website development must be a streamlined process that can quickly establish a maneuverable website and easily respond to user feedback.
Web Frameworks?
Django belongs to one of the prominent new generation of Web frameworks. It is quite different from traditional programming languages used to create Web applications, such as the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) standard that was popular during the late 1990’s. CGI applications require the Web developer to create everything from scratch through programming languages like Python. While the process is simple, it struggles to successfully handle Web applications that expand with multiple pages connected to the database. The database-connecting code should not have to be duplicated in every individual CGI script, so most Web developers will refactor a shared function. However, this repetitive task reduces programmer productivity and increases opportunities for minor mistakes. A Web framework provides a programming structure for applications, so that Web developers can focus on writing concise and maintainable codes.
Related Resource: Interface Design
Anyone who wants to learn the Django programming language must first understand the fundamentals of procedural and object-oriented programming. They need to understand control structures, objects, variables, classes and data structures, such as lists, hashes and dictionaries. Programmers must also have knowledge of the Python programming language because Django is actually a collection of libraries written in the Python programming language.