I just shipped my first commercial web application and found that writing the backend with django was still a big win because the platform is so stable and feature rich.
Authentication out of the box REST api with django rest framework ORM / migrations / etc with core django and south mod WSGI + apache + postgres (well documented and makes for a solid production environment to run your django web app) I decided to use ember.js and ember-data for the frontend and really enjoyed the framework after I got over the learning curve/ cliff I found this separation made it easier to test / reason about / maintain because the first time around Selenium was really my only option for full stack GUI tests (as half of it was rendered server side / but then jQuery soup would take over and manipulate the dom at certain points). And after you get a few of these tests written you realize how slow the feedback cycle is **then suddenly you're not doing TDD anymore -QA like feedback (and this is not what developers need for GUI development) Having the client GUI code be 100% JS gave me the testing story I've been looking for -speed + a nice api for writing integration tests. The only challenge was learning all the tech required to build this (both client / server side). I work with django daily and found writing REST apis is almost no code so the bulk of my learning was on the frontend. But for a developer just out of school this might seem like a HUGE amount to learn before you can be productive (the reason a single shared JS codebase would be an advantage obviously). That said, I still think django + ember (or something else) is a great platform to build web products with. On Monday, January 27, 2014 4:44:12 PM UTC-6, [email protected] wrote: > > Hi, > > I would like to know if this community is somewhat worried about the > future relevance of Django (and other purely server-side MV* Python web > app frameworks such as web2py for that matter) given the current momentum > of JavaScript (JS) everywhere? > > There are many competing architecture patterns for a WHOLE web app today > ranging: > a) from client-heavy SPA with a client-side MVC framework synching its > models via a REST API with a server-side reduced to a database access layer > > b) to light client apps with a server-side MVC frameworks and very little > or no Ajax > > c) and everything in the middle. > > I guess it is not too controversial to say that which is best (or even > merely adequate) depends on the generally moving target of the app > requirements (especially the non-functional ones) and thus a long > lifecycle app can be expected to have to change pattern at some point. > > > Given that: > 1) full web apps following any pattern can today be developed exclusively > with JavaScript (JS) frameworks on both sides who have incorporated most > (if not all) great design ideas from Django (and Rails) > > 2) IDEs ranging from Visual Studio to browser-based ones are available to > support such development > > 3) Python in the browser projects do not yet provide productive debugging > support (and will they ever without support from a tech giant?) > > 4) Cloud giants (Amazon, Google, Heroku, Microsoft) all offering JS framework > running servers > > are the productivity gains from the more legible, concise and abstract > Python code as compared to JS code really compensate the productivity > loss of having to port part of the app from one language to other every > time it must be pushed from one side (say server) to the other (say > client), or even to maintain a code base in two languages instead of one? > > Why then adopt Django (or web2py) for a new project today, instead of > going pure JS? > > I am a big Python fan in terms of design and principles, but I am fearing > that it has started to lose the popularity/adoption/community size battle > against JS, which, from a pragmatic productivity standpoint is relevant > and thus potentially snowballing after a tipping point is reached. Trends > are deadly fast in web development, cf. how quickly J2EE+static HTML, then > J2EE+Flash and .NET+Silverlight have fallen from grace. > > Any thought on this? > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django-users/f72ab156-0687-4636-8e3a-75188b772f8c%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
