You’re reading The Django Book, first published in December 2007 (and updated in 2009) by Apress as The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right.
We’ve released this book freely for a couple of reasons. First, we love Django and we want it to be as accessible as possible. Many programmers learn their craft from well-written technical material, so we set out to create a top-notch guide and reference to Django.
Second, it turns out that writing books about technology is fundamentally difficult: your words are often outdated before the book even reaches the printer. On the web, however, “the ink is never dry” — we can (and will!) keep the book updated.
The most gratifying aspect of working on Django is the community. We've been especially lucky that Django has attracted such a smart, motivated, and friendly bunch. A segment of that community followed us over to the online "beta" release of this book. Their reviews and comments were indispensable; this book wouldn't have been possible without all that wonderful peer review. Almost a thousand people left comments that helped us improve the clarity, quality, and flow of the final book; we'd like to thank each and every one of them.
We're especially grateful to those who took the time to review the book in depth and left dozens (sometimes hundreds) of comments apiece: Marty Alchin, Max Battcher, Oliver Beat- tie, Rod Begbie, Paul Bissex, Matt Boersma, Robbin Bonthond, Peter Bowyer, Nesta Campbell, Jon Colverson, Jeff Croft, Chris Dary, Alex Dong, Matt Drew, Robert Dzikowski, Nick Efford, Ludvig Ericson, Eric Floehr, Brad Fults, David Grant, Simon Greenhill, Robert Haveman, Kent Johnson, Andrew Kember, Marek Kubica, Eduard Kucera, Anand Kumria, Scott Lamb, Fredrik Lundh, Vadim Macagon, Markus Majer, Orestis Markou, R. Mason, Yasushi Masuda, Kevin Menard, Carlo Miron, James Mulholland, R.D. Nielsen, Michael O'Keefe, Lawrence Oluyede, Andreas Pfrengle, Frankie Robertson, Mike Robinson, Armin Ronacher, Daniel Roseman, Johan Samyn, Ross Shannon, Carolina F. Silva, Paul Smith, Björn Stabell, Bob Stepno, Graeme Stevenson, Justin Stockton, Kevin Teague, Daniel Tietze, Brooks Travis, Peter Tripp, Matthias Urlichs, Peter van Kampen, Alexandre Vassalotti, Jay Wang, Brian Will, and Joshua Works.
Many thanks to our technical editor, Jeremy Dunck. Without Jeremy this book would be littered with errors, inaccuracies, and broken code. We feel very lucky that someone as talented as Jeremy found the time to help us out.
Specials thanks go to Simon Willison for writing the chapter on form processing. We really appreciate the help, and we're thrilled that Simon's excellent writing can be part of this book.
We're grateful for all the hard work the folks at Apress put into this book. They've been amazingly supportive and patient; this book wouldn't have come together without a lot of work on their part. We're especially happy that Apress supported and even encouraged the free release of this book online; it's wonderful seeing a publisher so embracing the spirit of open source.
Finally, of course, thanks to our friends, families, and coworkers who've graciously tolerated our mental absence while we finished this work.
Adrian Holovaty is a Web developer with a background in journalism. He’s known in journalism circles as one of the pioneers of “journalism via computer programming”, and in technical circles as “the guy who invented Django.”
He was lead developer at World Online for 2.5 years, during which time Django was developed and implemented on World Online’s sites. He’s the founder of EveryBlock, a “news feed for your block”.
Adrian lives in Chicago, USA.
Jacob Kaplan-Moss is a partner at Revolution Systems which provides support services around Django and related open source technologies. Jacob previously worked at World Online, where Django was invented, where he was the lead developer of Ellington, a commercial Web publishing platform for media companies.
Jacob lives in Lawrence, Kansas, USA.
Jeremy Dunck was rescued from corporate IT drudgery by Free Software and, in part, Django. Many of Jeremy’s interests center around access to information.
Jeremy was the lead developer of Pegasus News, one of the first uses of Django outside World Online, and has since joined Votizen, a startup intent on reducing the influence of money in politics.
He serves as DSF Secretary, organizes and helps organize sprints, cares about the health and equity of the Django community. He has gone an embarrassingly long time without a working blog.
Jeremy lives in Mountain View, CA, USA.