⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Essential reading for Django developers

I read this book in 2014. At that time, I had already completed the Official Django Tutorials and knew how to code simple apps. However, I was not confident and couldn't handle more complex projects. I figured out a few things from the official documentation but was always worried that I was not following best practices in my own projects.

I picked up this book to get more confident with Django. I must say that the book was very effective in this regard. When I finished this book, I was confident and could advice others on how to organize a Django website. The authors cover important topics like how to use virtualenv, requirements file, different settings files for development and production, how to leverage model inheritance and class based views to stay DRY, security best practices, testing, deployment and much much more. The authors are recognized experts in Django, so that made me confident in the knowledge that I gained from the book.

Things I liked about this book

• The book uses the example of an ice cream website throughout the book to illustrate the concepts. I really enjoyed the examples and could understand the concepts better in context.

• The writing style is beautiful. The book is a pleasure to read.

Things I didn't like

• The book probably went a little overboard with the DRY principle. I say this from experience as it encouraged me to make websites more complicated than they ought to be. However, this is not really a major downside as every book has its own angle and one needs to augment it with experience. None of the suggestions in the book are theoretically incorrect.

In summary, if you have a little bit of experience with Django and looking to solidify your knowledge or learn best practices, then this book is great. It's really an essential title in a Django developer's bookshelf because I don't think there's any other books with similar content. I recommend it wholeheartedly.