Adopting the OSQA project has suddenly put learning Django on my list of priorities, so I’m enjoying the holiday weekend and working my way through “The Django Book” by Adrian Holovaty and Jacob Kaplan-Moss. It’s my first significant exposure to Python and its much-loved Django framework, and I have to say that I am pretty impressed. This duo seems to deliver results with very little code and effort – the kind of “smart lazy” I always admire.

The philosophy of Django’s template system, for example, leverages a “keep it simple” approach that encourages better separation of business and presentation logic. Having seen and written too many web templates that actually end up performing business logic, I can appreciate this idea. Similarly, Django’s data model abstraction seems to deliver a good balance between portability and power, and you may never need to write a SQL query to use it.

I’ve been using TextMate on my MacBook Pro to work through the book’s examples so far. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up wanting to use Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA for OSQA development work. I installed Aptana’s Pydev plugin into Eclipse, but for some reason it fires up python twice and only terminates it once when I invoke their Python debugger, and it’s warning me about errors in code that is apparently correct and works. I also installed the Python Plugin for IntelliJ IDEA, so I’ll give that a try today. It looks pretty solid, and the JetBrains team always does exceptional work.

“The Django Book” is clear, well-organized and moves at a good pace. You’ll want to read the free, online version because the print version is way out of date. I think I’ll put on some Django Reinhardt in the background to set the mood for the next chapter!