I’ve been playing with websites for a long time now and have used the usual variety of technologies along the way. However, I’d always resisted using any of the “frameworks” as when I’d originally looked they didn’t seem to offer me much and required me to learn a new language or technology. A few months ago this changed.
I’d been trying to find the time to create a website and had been tackling it using PHP. This made sense for my server already had PHP and I’ve been using it for a long time so knew my way around. Going was slow though as writing stuff from scratch takes time and time was the one thing i didn’t have. Bemoaning this fact to someone online led to them persuading me to try django. Initially I was reluctant – it’s a framework after all – but the fact that it’s python and python has been one of the things I keep meaning to spend more time with swayed me far enough that I downloaded it and started playing.
Several months later I’m a convert! It makes writing sites easier than I’d thought they could be and I really like the way it does things. It was a little odd to start with, but that soon passed as I started to spend more time with it. The biggest problems have been some of the documentation and my general lack of python knowledge. I should clarify and say that I’m not knocking the documentation that’s available, which is generally of a very high standard, but at times there is a lack of examples and explanation that I found puzzling. The #django IRC channel on freenode is very helpful and one of the most welcoming I’ve come across.
While the initial site I started working on still isn’t finished, another site is approaching the point that could be considered complete – flickrVotr! This is a small site that aims to allow people from flickr to hold competitions in an easier manner. It still has a few bugs, but it’s basically all there and starting to work well enough for me to advertise it here. It needs a revamp on the looks front, but then which of my websites doesn’t? 🙂 If you have a look and come across any problems please let me know!
Finally, a huge thank you to Ian Holsman who is providing me with the hosting while I get my own server up to speed for mod_python.