Django for Beginners, Fifth Edition

🌟 Completely updated for Django 5! 🌟

Django for Beginners is a project-based introduction to Django, the popular Python-based web framework. It is suitable for total beginners who have never built a website before and professional programmers looking for a fast-paced guide to modern web development and Django fundamentals.

The completely revised fifth edition takes a practical approach, introducing concepts through six projects designed to simulate real-world scenarios. From a Hello World website to a message board application, a blogging platform, and a newspaper CMS, you'll learn about Django's architecture and how to add new functionality step-by-step.

This book is for readers with basic Python knowledge and programmers transitioning to Django from other web frameworks. It is a fast-paced guide that aligns with current best practices and modern web development with Django, ensuring you're learning the most relevant and applicable skills.

In the book you’ll learn how to:

• Build 6 websites from scratch, including a Blog platform and Newspaper CMS
• Deploy online using security best practices
• Implement signup, login, logout, password change, and password reset
• Customize the look and feel of your sites
• Write tests and run them for all your code
• Add permissions and authorizations to make your app more secure

If you’re curious about Python-based web development, Django for Beginners is a best-practices guide to writing, testing, and deploying your own websites quickly.

Sample Chapters

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Initial Set Up
• Chapter 2: Hello World Website
• Chapter 3: Pages Website
• Chapter 4: Company Website

FAQ

Who are you?

Hi, I'm William Vincent, a former Django Software Foundation Board Member and the founder of LearnDjango.com. I host the Django Chat podcast, write the Django News newsletter, and maintain several open-source packages, including awesome-django and DjangoX. I have given conference talks at DjangoCon US 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2024.

What's included?

A PDF watermarked with your email address and an ePub file for each book. Source code is available on GitHub. Updates for future editions are automatically included.

Is there a printed version?

Yes! It's available on Amazon.

Can I receive an invoice?

Yes! Gumroad will send you a receipt with a "generate" button to turn it into an invoice so you can be reimbursed by your employer.

Do you offer any discounts?

Gumroad’s purchasing power parity feature automatically offers you a discount based on your location. I also offer seasonal discounts; follow my blog or Mastodon to be notified of these.

Praise

“The perfect introduction to the Django web framework.”—CARLTON GIBSON, Django Fellow (2018-2023) and Django REST Framework co-maintainer

“My go-to recommendation whenever anyone asks how to learn Django. If you are looking for one book to master Django, this is it!”—ANNA MAKARUDZE, Django Software Foundation President (2021-2022)

“A fantastic on-ramp to this brilliant web framework. Django for Beginners doesn’t just talk about building sites with Django, it walks you through five of them. Get in the reps!”—ADAM JOHNSON, Django Steering Council member and author of two intermediate Django books

“When readers interested in web development ask me what to read next after Python Crash Course, I refer them to Django for Beginners. I highly recommend you check out this book!”— ERIC MATTHES, author of Python Crash Course

“A masterful step-by-step guide to Django covering all the fundamentals, testing, and deployment.”—JEFF TRIPLETT, Python Software Foundation Director, DEFNA Co-Founder, and REVSYS Partner

“This book goes way beyond just reading the docs and doing a tutorial. I've known William for many years and he's deeply embedded in the Django community, which means he's thought a lot about how people learn and use Django.” —MICHAEL KENNEDY, host of Talk Python and Python Bytes podcasts, founder of Talk Python Training

“Learning Django and the Django REST Framework by working through William S. Vincent's Django for Beginners, Django for APIs and Django for Professionals was a turning point in my career. I started to take myself seriously as a developer, not just an electrical engineering grad who happened to like coding.”—ANDREW QUINN on Hacker News