Django for Beginners

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1. hiAndrewQuinnFeb 2025
   I'm an intentionally slow adopter of new technology unless it's going to be core to the value add. So generally when I set out to actively learn a new library I pick one that's already been active for at least a decade.

   By that point most popular stuff has at least one good published book on it explaining it in an accessible way. William S. Vincent's Django for Beginners, Robin Wieruch's Road to React, (a little older) The Definitive Guide to SQLite, and (a little heavier) Haskell Programming From First Principles are all excellent examples of this that I've read cover to cover.

   Maybe the only strange thing about my approach is that I generally take notes by making Anki flashcards while I read. I generally like to learn libraries well ahead of whenever I think I might actually use them if possible, and this is the only way a baseline level of information about e.g. Django/React is going to survive in my head for 2 years before I actually finally stumble across something that makes me think, "Hey, this would be a really good usecase for a Django/React project."

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2. hiAndrewQuinnFeb 2025
   Naming only ones I haven't seen mentioned in other comments:

   - Networking for Systems Administrators, by Michael W. Lucas. Its explicit goal is to teach you just enough about networking, from the electron up, that you can talk to an actual network engineer and not make a fool out of yourself. It's a phenomenally high-ROI read if networking isn't your strong suit.

   - The first 3 chapters of Mastering Regular Expressions. Regexes are up there with Vim keybindings in terms of sheer ubiquitous use no matter what stack you find yourself in. The rest of the book is excellent if you want to actually implement a regex engine.

   - The Art of Unix Programming. Less technical. Gives you an idea of why exactly 'nix machines are like that, especially older commands. The 18 rules of design are worth committing to memory.

   - The Linux Programming Interface. More technical. Pairs esp nicely with the above. Lots of practice C code one can run, plenty of short self-contained chapters.

   - Not a book, but an online paper: https://how.complexsystems.fail . I see echoes of this everywhere I work, and it often helps me understand what kinds of "bad" things are secretly highly evolved resiliency measures.

   - The Little Schemer. Just for the joy of solving problems.

   Most of the others I can think of are too specialized to be of worth to everyone, but for what it's worth, William S. Vincent's Django for Beginners, APIs, and Professionals are a lovely triptych for anyone wanting to get into backend web dev.

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3. hiAndrewQuinnMar 2024
   Learning Django and the Django REST Framework by working through William S. Vincent's Django for Beginners [1], Django for APIs and Django for Professionals was a turning point in my career. I started to take myself seriously as a developer, not just an electrical engineering grad who happened to like coding.

   Not SICP as a teen, not the Haskell Book, not The Art of Unix Programming, not A Philosophy of Software Design. Those are all fantastic books, but they were the wrong things to read for someone whose definition of "Keep It Simple, Stupid" was "never build anything at all and stay unemployed". Django got me to shut up and build.

   And build I did, and most of it did and does suck, and that's okay. And then I got a job, not doing Django, but using the things I learned from actually building with Django every day. I owe Django a great deal, and I still think of the DRF as my favorite approach to building a "well-tempered", maintainable API, on a deadline.

   [1]: https://djangoforbeginners.com/

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4. satya71Jan 2023
   Will Vincent has a series of books for Django. I recommend Django for Beginners as a start. Two Scoops and Django for Professionals are great after you have a few projects under your belt.

   https://wsvincent.com/books/

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5. mjhea0Aug 2020
   For beginner Django materials, I highly recommend William Vincent's work:

   1. Django for Beginners: https://djangoforbeginners.com/ 2. Django for APIs: https://djangoforapis.com/

   I helped edit the second book. :)

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6. aurahamMay 2023
   This is the kind of book that I'd like to read on my Kindle while commuting to work. However, the author only offers the book as PDF. I'd would be nice if other formats are also available, at least EPUB.

   Right now, I am reading Django for Beginners [1] which is available in EPUB. I could read it in PDF but the experience will not be the same.

   [1] https://djangoforbeginners.com

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