Django Linkage

If you’re into web development and looking for a clean yet simple way to get the job done faster and be more productive, Django may be the web framework for you. Based on the Python programming language, it makes web development stupidly easy while giving access to hunderds of useful Python libraries.

I have used Django for over 6 months at my previous place of employment and it made my life so much easier!

The Django community is very active and still growing. Have a look at my Django People profile that shows some of the projects I have contributed to that use this awesome framework. Django People is an excellent place to find like-minded people and become part of the community.

BluMarble is a great blog that has plenty of tutorials and snippets of code written in Django and Python. The guy that runs the blog is a friend of mine and has mentored me while I was working alongside him.

This Week in Django and Django Dose are 2 sites that I have come across recently that seems to have some good material regarding Django. There’s also Django Sites that shows some of the sites that has been developed in Django. There’s even some open source sites in there!

Now all that’s left is for me to get back into Django and create a few awesome web apps

Xampp & Wamp

Now as most of you may know; linux, apache, mysql, and php (LAMP) is one of the most deployed software stacks in the world.

Almost every web hosting company uses LAMP and this makes it a very cheap and viable solution to build your applications on.

However, if you are not comfortable with Linux or prefer Windows then Xampp or Wamp is what you need. These applications will basically setup and deploy the apache server with php and mysql all integrated together.

I have tried and used Xampp successfully and am currently downloading Wamp to give it a shot. I really like being able to just double click on an installer and let it setup everything for me. There may be minor issues like setting up security correctly, firewalls etc but it’s not necessary if you’re developing on a home machine.

So if you’ve ever wanted to get into the open source development but afraid of Linux then this is a must. Easy to setup and use in no time with a full stack solution on a Windows machine.

Switch to Ubuntu 9.04

So I’ve been running Ubuntu 9.04 for just a few weeks now and have been really impressed. Not only is it faster in booting up, but everything has been polished.

The first Ubuntu that I tried was version 5.10. Since then things have changed rapidly and Ubuntu has become one of the most popular and mainstream linux disros in the world.

If you ever need to find any information on ubuntu, just google: “ubuntu <info needed>” and will most likely find more than enough information you need.

I’ve always liked the idea of open source and a community of sharing and helping. Ubuntu really is a shining light in this regard. Having tried many distros in the last few years, I can safely conclude that Ubuntu has the best chance of taking linux mainstream.

As you can see from the screenshot above, I’ve tweaked the appearance just a little to suite my needs.

Usually I try a distro for a few months and wipe out my Windows partition so that I move completely over to linux but always fall back to Windows. However, this time I have installed Ubuntu inside Windows and therefore will hopefully make moving to linux more easier even though it may take some time.

Thus far I am pleased to say that things have gone relatively smooth and I am fully productive. I use Firefox for my web browsing, Audacious for playing my music, VLC for videos, Brasero for disc burning, Open Office for office productivity, NetBeans for software development, and lets not forget the trusty terminal for everything

That is bascially all I need to do in any OS. Plus there are plenty other applications for whatever job you need to get done. If you are a graphic designer then you can use Gimp and Inkscape. There is Blender for 3D rendering and QCAD if you need a CAD appliaction. Dia is pretty useful for diagram creation and there are plenty of audio creation applications such as Ardour.

If there is a Windows app that you must have then WINE may be able to emulate a Windows environment for that application. There are regular OS updates and a massive repository of applications for just about anything. Every 6 months Ubuntu goes up a version and gets even better. The next release is 9.10 Karmic Koala which is a long term release (LTS), meaning that you get three years support on the desktop, and five years on the server. Hopefully by then I will have enough experience to move completly over to linux using Ubuntu.

So if you are ready to take the plunge into a world where you will learn more than you could ever learn, having a cost effective solution while running world class applications with an explosive growing and helpful community (phew), then now is the time!

Open Source vs The Rest

I’ve been working with open source technology for sometime now and I can say that is an extremely fast paced and exciting part of the industry. The applications I’ve done are coded in PHP and a Python framework called Django. I’ve only touched on Ruby on Rails.

Open source has so many choices in terms of languages, platforms, and frameworks. It can sometimes become a bit much when choosing a suitable technology for a particular project. This is an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time.

On the plus side, it is easy to make adjustments to the framework as well as save costs since you’re not forced to buy into a proprietary framework.

The downside is that it can become frustrating to find documentation or relevant examples when you need to. Also, there may be less people that will know the framework well so training costs and time will need to be allocated.

Now comes a proprietary framework like .Net. It may not have all the features as some of the open source frameworks but it is well known and has some really good features that make development easier.
Visual Studio is also a great IDE for .Net development. I have never used an IDE that has as many features as VS. The auto completion feature is fantastic.

Sometimes, tools that cost money is not a bad thing. Sometimes it is easier to develop on a proprietary framework.