I was talking about just using django to make a web app. It is awesome in that regard. But if I'm making a web app just for learning about the issues regarding making web apps, django is not suitable because that's it's job :)
But I am hoping to move into django eventually, but first I want tknow what is going on behind the curtain.
I agree, Django is likely not the best if you're just starting learning, and writing a webapp from scratch. Working in an existing codebase, with other devs of whom you can ask questions, is a luxury that I was very thankful for.
I use Django at work, and it was my first time with Python. The beauty of Django is, IT'S ALL SOURCE. When you run it locally, you have TONS of learning options:
- Get an IDE, and read the sources if you don't understand how something works. "Find-Definition" all the way down. (I heart PyCharm.)
- If something's broken, you can edit it!
- You can put in `import ipdb; ipdb.set_trace()` calls anywhere and get a debugging prompt! (If you don't have IPython, you can use `pdb` instead of `ipdb`... shudder.) Being able to print What Actually Gets Passed Around can occasionally be very helpful.
- You can put in debugging messages at multiple points in the flow!
- make a `pygrep` alias to answer "where is ..." questions:
# ignore south migrations, and external libraries.
# You can alter this if you care about reading libs' codebase
alias pygrep='grep -rin --include=*.py --exclude=*.pyc --exclude-dir=lib --exclude-dir=migrations'
