Talk Python To Me #190: Teaching Django
Dec 11, 2018
Will Vincent, the author of "Django for Beginners" and "Django for Professionals," shares his insights on teaching Django effectively. He discusses the obstacles beginner programmers face and emphasizes empathy in teaching. Vincent also explores the evolution of web development education, particularly the importance of project-based learning. Additionally, he highlights Django’s user-friendly nature and its supportive community, as well as the benefits of attending tech conferences to strengthen connections among developers.
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Teach Using Multiple Small Progressive Apps
- Do teach beginners by building multiple small apps that increase in complexity to deliver fast wins and repeated practice.
- Will Vincent's Django for Beginners uses five apps that ramp features like auth and databases to build confidence.
Django's Difficulty Comes From The Web Not The Framework
- Learning Django is hard mainly because web development itself is complex, not because the framework is bad.
- Beginners conflate web fundamentals pain (HTTP, deployment, virtualenvs) with framework issues and blame Django.
Give Exact Setup Commands For Beginners
- Do show exact, explicit setup steps for beginners (directories, venv commands, activate) instead of assuming prior knowledge.
- Will argues listing the four commands to create and activate a virtualenv prevents many drop-offs.