I'm excited to announce that I'm working on a second edition of the Django Book.
The first edition, which I cowrote with Jacob Kaplan-Moss, was published in print by Apress more than a year ago, and, sadly, it's become out of date. It covers Django version 0.96, and many of the examples don't work with the current version, 1.0.
Fortunately, now that Django has reached 1.0 and is committed to backwards compatibility, this book will have a much longer shelf life. :-)
At this point, I've rewritten/edited the first three chapters and published the drafts for free online, as we did the first time around. I plan to add chapters incrementally over the coming weeks. Instead of posting blog entries here, I'll make those "new chapter posted" announcements on my Twitter account.
What's new in this edition? I'm not only updating examples to work with 1.0; I'm also doing a full rethinking and rewriting of many of the sections and will probably add a couple of chapters (testing Django apps, anyone?).
As before, we've got a slick granular comment system so that you can leave feedback on particular paragraphs. These were invaluable for the first edition, so I hope folks submit lots of great comments (without, I hope, finding too many errors!).
Apress has signed on again to publish the second edition in print. Also as before, I'm happy to report that the book will remain free online. The first edition is still available in its entirety, too, but I've added some much-needed caveats that it's out of date.
Jacob is sitting this one out due to time constraints, so I'll be doing the writing/rewriting, and the fine editors at Apress will be editing. It's easier to rewrite than write from scratch, so it shouldn't take too long.
Dig in, enjoy, and leave plenty of comments!
Comments
Posted by codekoala on January 9, 2009, at 7:38 a.m.:
Can't wait to see it!
Posted by AE on January 9, 2009, at 8 a.m.:
Great!
Really looking forward to the complete second edition book.
I think Django 1.0 needs more published books on the shelves.
I hope I'll provide some useful comments on for the drafts.
Posted by Matt on January 9, 2009, at 11:59 a.m.:
Something I can link my friends to in the efforts to get them into Django, then? ;)
Posted by David Zhou on January 9, 2009, at 12:29 p.m.:
This is great news!
I sent a complaint about the confusion the first edition of the book caused with newcomers to Django, so it'll be awesome once the second edition is finished.
Posted by m on January 9, 2009, at 2:35 p.m.:
This is very cool. How do you find the time?
I'm back to Django again and understand what you mean about the first edition. I sort of know how to translate it because of past experience, but for someone new to the framework it could be confusing.
BTW, is there any plan to redesign the framework and book websites? I liked the "Django Green" theme in 2006, but it's starting to look old and could really use an update. I understand it's perfectly functional as-is and it does have a nice appearance, but I believe it's beneficial to keep a site looking fresh (and that's coming from someone who's more of a programmer than a designer).
Cheers.
Posted by Nick on January 9, 2009, at 3:27 p.m.:
The best book for Django is it's documentation and code, really. But anyway thank you, I've read all books on Django available and will read this updated too.
Posted by Nick E on January 9, 2009, at 3:34 p.m.:
Fantastic news Adrian! I shall certainly be upgrading my copy at the earliest opportunity.
Could you perhaps further future-proof the book by including a little bit on some of the key Django 1.1 features? (e.g. ORM aggregation)
Posted by Kevin Fricovsky on January 9, 2009, at 3:37 p.m.:
Great to hear! The Django Book and terrific Django documentation were, like many, my intro to Django. Look forward to following the updates on twitter, and I'll do my best to leave comments, etc.
Posted by Eric Walstad on January 9, 2009, at 7:21 p.m.:
Thank you, Adrian. You and the rest of the Django team continue to impress. I'm looking forward to reading the revisions.
Posted by yml on January 10, 2009, at 1:56 a.m.:
Thank you for your continuous effort in improving/documenting django. I read the first edition online and bought "a dead tree version". It as been immensely useful to me and still is. I have 3 suggestions for this second edition :
- Enrich the chapter on the forms to include dynamic form generation
- Add a chapter on geodjango
- ORM aggregation
Posted by Srik on January 11, 2009, at 10:24 p.m.:
I started learning Django with The Django book first edition and it's very helpful combined with documentation.
I hope you (or may be Guest Author) are planning to add a chapter on comments (moderation) & signals and I must say documentation for both of them is fantastic now.
Posted by Paul on January 12, 2009, at 2:22 a.m.:
How about a section on signals?
Thanks,
Paul
Posted by Steve on January 18, 2009, at 9:39 a.m.:
I love the concept of peper plus web publishing. Just like first edition I will use the online version for reference and purchase the paper version for reading. Sweet.
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