Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with django

It's a James Brown/Tupac mashup, sure. But there's something else there.

MarchHare — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:21:17 -0800

So I'm listening the other day to the soundtrack for Django Unchained, spurred on by the recent thread about Ennio Morricone. I come up on "Unchained", which is the big James Brown-derived number used in the trailer. There's a piece of music used there that's nothing from "The Payback", and after going online to listen to "Untouchable", the other track credited as being sampled, it's not from that, either. It's the western-ish rising section audible from about 0:04 through about 0:25. I could swear I know it from somewhere, but I'm coming up empty, and I'm not having much luck through the ol' Goog. Anyone know what it's from?

It's a CMS, a webapp and a database browser: how do I do this?

outlier — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 08:56:24 -0800

I'm rebuilding a old website that doesn't quite neatly categorize in the it's a blog / it's a CMS / it's a table browser / it's a webapp thingie. After a few years out from web development, it seems fit to examine my whole strategy and ask how best to do this. Years ago, I made a website for a laboratory I was working with. As is usual with these things, severe mission creep set in and it ended up:

* giving CRUD-like access to a database of samples, with record browsing and searching
* providing tools for visualizing, comparing and working with this data in various ways
* It also functioned as a CMS for various groups that used the database or were involved in lab activities, being somewhere they put reference documents, notices and so on.

There was the added complication that some of the website was open to the public, and some parts only for members of particular groups. Being a Python fan, I did the site up in Plone. NEVER DO THIS.

Anyway, to my surprise, the thing has worked fine for 5 years, with next to no maintenance or attention. Now, I'm between jobs and my old colleagues asked me if I can update the site. Which brings me to the main question: what framework should I use?

* I'm a Python guy but I'm done a bit of Rails work as well. Python will be the language of choice unless there's some overwhelmingly superior choice in another language
* Plone is out of the question. Never again.
* By default I thought of Django (which I have a little experience in), but I'm unsure if the mix of record browsing and content would sit well. Also Django's idea of multiple "apps" in a website never seemed to work well to me, with them acting like wholly independent units rather than parts of a single site.
* The task is a bit too involved for the various microframeworks: Flash, Bottle etc.
* The access control / security is pretty important. People shouldn't see what they're not allowed to see.

So what do I use? Are there any new and useful developments in the web framework sphere? Is Django up to the job?

What is the current status of Django?

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:38:19 -0800

Is Django still widely used by software developers? I'm using Django for some work, and find it very useful in general. However, something I can't quite figure out is how popular it is. I know that there are a few high profile websites that use it, but it's not clear to me whether it is still a vibrant community or not.

Most of the developers I know, use PHP or Ruby, but I find Django (specifically GeoDjango) to be extremely useful for my work. When I go to read StackOverflow questions, or seek code examples online the total number seems much lower than I would expect. For example, I want to learn how to handle user authentication with 3rd party services. I've found a few libraries for doing this, but not a large number of examples using these libraries. I was not sure if I'm searching for the wrong terms of whether the community has always been quite small.

Hence my question - is the framework still living and healthy, or is it slowly dying off?

Which job boards are worth my job-posting dollar?

Shepherd — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:12:05 -0800

I need to find a Web designer -- but one that can design for a Django environment. MeFi Jobs hasn't turned up anything, and free sites just get me spam from India. What pay-to-play posting sites are worth paying for? Over the past two years, a Django programmer and I have built a pretty great Web site that I think has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, neither of us have design skills to speak of.

The programmer has pulled back from the project due to health issues, and I'm left with a great idea, a butt-ugly site, and neither the skill to design a better version, or to implement that design in a Django environment. So I'm looking for 80% designer, 20% Django-savvy person.

I've got a great handle on what's needed, and a very detailed set of needs and parameters. Clarity won't be an issue. But there are a *lot* of sites out there that charge money to post a job, and while I've got a (modest) budget to pay a designer, I don't have hundreds and hundreds of dollars to spread the word. Which site will best meet my kinda unusual needs?

Here's the list I've assembled, organized into boards more oriented towards design, ones oriented more towards programming, and some that seem to scratch both itches.

I'm in the awkward position of knowing a bit, but not a lot, about both things, but not enough to be able to gauge somebody's competence at the drop of a hat. I'm also looking into the freelancer sites like Elance, but they feel a bit more risky than a dedicated job board.

Advice, MeFites?

Design-driven:
Smashing Magazine: $75
Authentic Jobs: $99
Krop: $199
Coroflot: $265
The FWA: (Euros)100
Design Related: Invitation only
Aiga Design Jobs: $95
Behance: $199

Django-driven:
StackOverflow: $350
Django Gigs: $45
Dice: $495
CrunchBoard: $200
Ars Technica (via Monster?): $300 (on "sale")

Both, or both-ish:
Boxes and Arrows: $250
37 Signals: $400

All-purpose:
LinkedIn: $300
Elance (free)
Project4Hire (free)

Spinning, exploding Excel-driven web app: How or should it be?

metajc — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 08:45:34 -0800

Sometimes, I am a front-end web developer. Frequently, I meet new people at work who want to turn really complicated Excel documents into dazzlingly interactive web applications. Besides Excel's "Save to Web App" or "Save to SharePoint" features, such people ask if I can tap into an industry to support this -- perhaps scads of agencies and web-based or downloadable tools that make "websites" or at least customizable, interactive reports from Excel spreadsheets, data, and calculations. I'm yet to find this an abundance of examples of this. Are there? If so, what do you call them? If you use Google Analytics, MailChimp or Hootsuite, you are familiar with bouncing, cheerful report graphs and charts.

I know that those specific tools required teams and years worth of custom programming. I assume that these apps also derive their presentations from databases that are not Excel files. People seem to passionately believe, however, that there has got to be an easy way to pour Excel spreadsheets into a machine that spits out more simplistic but nonetheless animated pie charts, line charts, map charts, bar charts, etc. You can customize the colors and fonts! Click here to add your logo!

I've been Googling all morning and I see a few discussions on StackOverflow about how to pipe data into and out of this or that via Ruby, Python, Django or PHP. I see a few homebrewed applications that sort of do something via Javascript.

For the sake of specification, say I have an excel file with multiple tabs. Each tab has thousands of rows and nearly 50 columns. The existing Excel charts are based on calculations of those tabs. Is there a web or intranet-friendly tool that will eat that spaghetti and excrete more colorful, JQuery-powered whirligigs?

I don't mean to come off as sarcastic to the believers or naive to those who know. It just seems a tall order to me. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

I'm at the end of my server-related rope

supercres — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 11:26:44 -0800

My lab has a Django database and MoinMoin wiki on a severely aging Mac (Leopard, 10.5) server. Please, people who keep up with this sort of software, tell me: what's my best course of action for modernizing it? More info and options inside. This server is, by far, the oldest computer in our lab. It's running Server 10.5.8, too old to just be migrated to a new machine. And even so, a simple migration probably wouldn't get our customized software: (1) a MoinMoin wiki that serves both as our public-facing website and knowledge repository for the lab, and (2) a Django/MySQL (I think) database that collects experimental participant and session data over the web from staff experimenters. (Not the experimental data itself, fortunately; just linked tables of participants, sessions, payments, experiments, post-processing tasks, etc. There are automatic things like money being added to participant's balance when a session is added, etc.) It also has Open Directory, used basically only for wiki access.

A year ago, we had a former lab member visiting for several months. He looked into moving everything intact to a new Mac server. He hit enough roadblocks that he eventually gave up; Apple removing MySQL was part of it, but I think there were other issues. Now I can't easily follow up with him to see what the issues are (he's extremely busy as a medical resident, and will be so for another six weeks).

I know that it looks like Apple's support for server customers is waning (or at least, that's what I hear). With that in mind, and above-mentioned issues, I see three options:

Ignore past failings and keep trying to move current systems to a new Mac server. Other than the apparent difficulty, a big issue is that Apple could break everything with the next Server OS update the way they did between 10.5.8 and now, making it necessary for us to go through this again. I would like the new system to be more resilient. The other big issue is that no one in the lab has the expertise to do it. I know some Python, but probably not enough to do this on my own. So we'd probably have to hire someone (hopefully a CS student, since we're at a major research university).
Get a new Mac server and ditch Django and MoinMoin. Set up a new database from scratch with more user-friendly software (Filemaker?) and import the old tables. Set up a new wiki (oh how I hate MoinMoin) and import existing pages as best we can. This is clearly the biggest time investment, but I feel like I could do it myself. The downsides are (a) new learning curve and possible bugs with database changeover, (b) time to set everything up from scratch, and (c) cost, especially if we need one of the more expensive versions of FileMaker.
Set up a Linux server and install Django and MoinMoin, hopefully intact. I know my way around a Unix system reasonably well, but my unfamiliarity with Django and MoinMoin means that I'd probably need outside (hired) help, especially since I'd need to set it up as a public-facing server. I don't know anything about, for example, creating new users, whereas on the Mac, I can just use Workgroup Manager. An advantage, though, is that we have existing unused Linux boxes more-or-less ready to set up as new servers.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that the current Django application is buggy, so some pages take ages to load? That's a point in my mind for nuke-and-rewrite, since fixing it would probably take someone already familiar with Django.

So my questions are:

Are any of these options obviously better or worse than the others?
If I were to set up a new relational database (option 2), are you familiar with any software that would fit the bill?
- If FileMaker is best, which version do I need to be able to do the following: create a relational database application with automatic record-creation rules (I'm not DB-familiar), create users (fewer than 50), who can work with database records with a web interface (though I guess installing FileMaker clients is possible too), and import our existing records?

Whew. This is what keeps me up at night. (Ok, not really.) If you'd like to see our current website or get more info about the database (can't show it to you because of privacy concerns), please let me know.

Thanks!

Unleash the snake!

Shepherd — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:24:58 -0800

How do I put my stupid simple Python scripts... on the Internet? Working my way through Learn Python the Hard Way, and it's pretty cool, but I'd love to be able to learn by doing, more than by rote code: a challenge I'd like to set for myself is to try to create something useful out of every lesson, and toss it online for other people to see/use. This would also require me to bone up on my CSS and page design skills in tandem with the Python-learning.

I'm sure the book will get around to how to do this eventually (or not), but I'd like to start doing it now, and have a page of "stuff I made while learning Python," each linking to its own subpage of the, well, stuff I learned.

So I'm looking for lessons on how to take "helloworld.py" and turn it into "helloworld.html," where the Python script executes in a nice Web page environment.

Notes:
- I'm an egotistical SOB. I would like to pretty up and keep these pages as part of my personal site, not stick them in a public code bin.
- My host (Webfaction) is apparently excellent as a Python/Django host, so no worries there.
- My html and CSS skills are limited -- I can build a simple Web page, but I'm kind of a toadstool when it comes to things like sophisticated floats, javascript, PHP, etc.

Best distrubution for Linux VPS?

davar — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:58:05 -0800

I run a couple of django-based websites/webapps. What OS should I use for my VPS? The most important thing is security and easy installation of packages (including dependencies). I also prefer a system that is easy to maintain. Security is more important, but if all else is equal I would specifically love something with easy to make init-scripts. I know I can install third party packages to do just about anything, but I prefer a batteries-included approach if it exists. Currently I use CentOS. It's okay, but I am not in love with it and changing VPS providers seems an opportunity to re-evaluate my choice of OS. I remember that it was difficult to upgrade python on my old Centos distrubtion, but that was years ago already. I am now playing with Ubuntu 10.04 at another VPS provider and that seems to work fine, but I noticed that many packages (like pip) are very out of date already. I'd guess that Ubuntu 11 has more up to date packages, but I like the Long Term Support of 10.04. On the other hand, I also see a significant advantage in being able to use the default packages that come with a distribution and that are automatically upgraded with security patches etc. I see that Debian has a backports repository that looks like it could be useful in this regard but I don't know how well that works in practice for the packages I need.

My new VPS provider offers a choice between CentOS (5 or 6), Ubuntu (10.04 LTS or 11) and Debian (5 or 6). I don't need many fancy things like control panels. Currently I need python 2.6 or 2.7, django, celery and rabbitmq and apache2 with mod_wsgi (I might change that to nginx/uwsgi at some point). I currently use postgresql, but want to try sqlite on the new server because I think it's enough. Still, if I do need a "real" database it will be postgres, but I wouldn't need the latest version. I would like information/opinions on what is the best of these for my situation when it comes to security and ease of installing/upgrading packages and system maintenance.

".cPr" instead of ".com" - what gives?

foggy out there now — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:48:18 -0800

The user's actual email address ends with ".com", but it is POST'ed to the application as ".cPr". This has happened with multiple users. Any ideas on what would cause that? I have a small, free web-based application. As part of a recovery-type feature, users can (optionally) enter their own email addresses. For some reason, I've been getting multiple cases where a user's email domain ends up as "gmail.cPr", "yahoo.cPr" or "[whateverdomain].cPr".

I've also noticed that ".edu" gets changed to ".ePr" as well.

I've gone through my code and I can't see how this is being mangled on my app's end. From looking at the timestamps and mangled addresses, it is possible that these users are in a single location.

Could there be something on the user's computer (perhaps an alternate keyboard layout or language setting or who-knows-what???) that would generate these weird changes?

Has anyone heard of this before?

FWIW, the app uses the Django framework.

Membership Management Systems?

jsturgill — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:04:19 -0800

Is there such a thing as an open-source, web-based Membership Management System? I have to put together a system for a rather large club with dues-paying members. Maybe two thousand members, divided up into twenty or thirty sub-groups.

The organization wants each member to be able to log in and update their information (phone number, address, etc.). The president of each sub-group should be able to view his/her members and take actions like sending out a mass group e-mail. And then at the top, the administrators will need to be able to see everyone, add and remove members, change presidents at the sub-group level, etc.

Before I charge in and reinvent the wheel, what existing solutions are there?

3.1 don't fail me now

elationfoundation — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:49:14 -0800

I taught myself Python 3.1... But, Django only works with 2.x. What are the alternatives for a web application framework for a complex data driven website that work with 3.1? I don't plan on teaching myself the outdated python in order to skip a year of waiting for Django. What are my alternatives?

Teach me about Jazz!

wander — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:11:49 -0800

Help me get into (and navigate) the world of Jazz. I love jazz, mainly Swing, Ragtime, Big Band, and Gypsy Jazz. Basically all the stuff from the 20's to the 50's. The thing is, I mostly know big names from that time. I'd love to know more about other artists from that period that are worth hearing. The other problem is that even for the artists I already know, I just have various songs here and there. I decided I'd like to actually own some albums and learning more about their music. However, trying to find my way around the recordings has been a byzantine nightmare.

This is a pretty long question, so I'll try to break it into parts. There are three things that I want, basically:

To find out more about the artists I already know and like, what their must-have recordings are, and what other interesting work they've done that I might not know about.

To find out about other artists from that time that I haven't heard yet.

Recommendations on what recordings to get. What are your favorite records by these artists and why?

I've checked out these previous threads already, and while there's a lot of great information in them, they don't seem to cover the eras I'm looking for, and for the most part they don't cover specific recordings, just names.

I love music, but most of the music I listen to is contemporary, where it's easy to get started by buying an album. Even classical music, you buy based on the performer. Easy enough. This does not seem to be the case at all with Jazz. All the stuff I like was before the idea of the album, so it seems like it's mostly just assorted recordings from different times that are collected. It seems like the record companies just constantly create new collections and put out new albums to maximize profits, with no regard to actually expanding their listeners. Even the artists I like, I have no idea where to start, which albums are definitive. With Ella, there are a few albums that I've seen regarded as must-own, but after that it's as confusing as anyone else. Same with Louis Armstrong and Etta James. I really want to listen to more, but it's utterly confusing.

Example: Recently I wanted to get a Billie Holiday album, so I went to Amazon to browse. There were over a hundred albums and sets, many with overlapping songs. Not only that, it was difficult to tell which version of a song was on any particular album, when it was sung, who it was sung with, etc. One opinion from a review I read said the Columbia years are better than the Verve years, but that was just one person's opinion. Are the Verve years still worth it? What makes them different? What's the difference between these five albums that all seem really similar? Do I have to buy all of these to have all the songs that I want? Which one am I even supposed to start with aaaaahhh

And then I closed the window and didn't get anything. Nor was I inclined to try again anytime soon. It feels like you have to know someone already into Jazz to get into it, which is why I turn to all you wonderful people.

Artists I already like that I'd love to know more about:

( With a few exceptions, most of these artists I only have a handful of songs by, and I'd like to get more but don't really know where to start )

Ella Fitzgerald

Louis Armstrong

Benny Goodman

Count Basie

Billie Holliday

Oscar Peterson

Stan Getz

Diane Schuur

Scott Joplin

Nat King Cole

Django Reinhardt

Henry "Red" Allen

Artists I've heard about but haven't really listened to, and don't know at all where to start:

Duke Ellington

Cab Calloway

Charlie Christian

Glen Miller

Fats Waller

Jelly Roll Morton

Art Tatum

Bix Beiderbecke

Artie Shaw

Chet Baker

Dizzie Gillespie

If there's an overlooked artist from around this time, I'd love to hear about them. I'd love to know more about female vocalists of the time, as well as any standout musicians.

I know I'm asking a lot, and any answer is appreciated, no matter how small, if it's just a single song or album recommendation or an interesting fact or tidbit. For as much as I love jazz I feel like there is so much I don't know about it. Thanks to you all in advance!

Python programming: what next?

randomname25 — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 12:49:57 -0800

I know basic XHTML and CSS, and I'm almost done with my first Python book. I want to build a database-driven website. What should I learn next? Book/website recommendations and general advice welcome. This is the Python book I've been using, and though I'm not quite finished, I've had absolutely no problems with learning from it so far. Actually, I've been finding programming super fun.

I've been told the next obvious step CS-wise is data structures and algorithms, but everything I've seen at the library has been very C++/Java-centric. Also, right now I feel like my (limited) web development knowledge and my (very limited) programming knowledge are two separate things that I don't know how to fit together. The database-driven website I want to build is entirely my own project, so there are no real deadlines. I'll learn whatever languages/tools I need to, but I gather that Python is appropriate for most web development tasks from previous questions. If I'm wrong, please correct me. (And point me to relevant tutorials for what you do recommend!)

So, here are my questions:

1. Any recommendations for data structures and algorithms materials that use Python? (Or do I really need to learn C++?)

2. I've seen a lot of intro to back-end development books and tutorials that center around PHP/MySQL. Are there comparable ones that use Python? At what point should I start learning Django?

3. How should I go about learning JavaScript/AJAX? To what extent can Python substitute for these, if any? Either way, books/tutorials?

Thanks!

Getting a part-time programming job without a degree...

RaDeuX — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:49:31 -0800

How do you go about when you look for a part-time entry-level software developer job? Previously I've asked a similar question here, but it never really pertained to the ultimate goal of getting real world experience. I did look at previous questions, but some are a few years old and it may not even pertain to my question because of it.

In a nutshell, I'm a funemployed 21 year old where my last "job" was at a small startup company for 9 months. Unfortunately, I did not learn much there, and I am sort of kicking myself in the leg right now for not quitting sooner. I did learn plenty of Django material, which seems to be the hottest thing for entry-level programmers. However, I can't find any advertisements on craigslist that are looking for Django developers. So I guess I just want some advice on how to look for them, and whether or not Django is still hot in the job market.

I do go to community college, and frankly it is taking longer than it should (4 years to transfer) due to entrance exams, difficult teachers, and my discipline is to blame as well. I've taken 3 quarters of C, 1 quarter of Java, 1 quarter of Unix, 1 quarter of Python, and 1 quarter of HTML (easiest class ever) in terms of classes relating to the computer science field. Right now I'm teaching myself how to make iPhone apps, but I sort of gave up on the idea when I found out how saturated the app market is.

I was thinking about freelancing, but my previous boss told me that I won't be able to touch that market until I have two years of real world experience. So my thinking is that seeking a job locally is the more viable solution to my unemployment. I've been running around in circles trying to figure out how to get a part-time coding job.

Dedicated server vs Google App Engine for a Django site?

ckohrman — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:55:53 -0800

Is it worth converting Django data models to Google App Engine Datastore API? A developer has created a query intensive site for me, written with a Django backend. I'm getting ready to launch, and I was about to lease a managed dedicated server (webfaction). But then I started looking at Google Apps...

Would it be more cost effective to have the Django data models converted to Google App Engine Datastore API? I'm weighing further development costs against a monthly server lease.

And costs aside, are there any benefits a dedicated server might have over Google Engine Apps, and vice versa?

How do I read a JSON object in Python?

lovetragedy — Mon, 17 May 2010 10:55:06 -0800

I'm mostly a front end guy, but I have worked with Django and Python before, so I thought it would be perfect for a web app idea I had. I actually understand it pretty well (or maybe not!), but I'm having an issue with an Ajax call I am trying to make. I'm passing a JSON object back to Python with jQuery and it seems to accept it in the correct format, but I have no idea how to actually access and iterate through the object in Python. If I simplify the code down to



a = request.POST 

return HttpResponse(a)

and console.log it to Firebug, it looks like a valid JSON object. I also tried passing it through as plain text, with equaly frustrating results. Every time I try to access it in Python I get an error about the QueryDict or unicode not having the attribute I'm trying to access. Googling has turned up something about serializing/deserializing, but I don't know the correct syntax to handle a JSON object made up of other objects like this:
[{name:"name", message:"text"}, {name:"name", message:"text"}, {name:"name", message:"text"}]

How do I iterate through the object and get at the data so I can save it to the database?

How to move domains to another host?

chrillsicka — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:31:07 -0800

What are the steps involved in moving registered domains to another host? I'd like to move a number of domains from 1&1 to WebFaction so I can run Django apps easily. An extra wrinkle is that one of the domains needs to be assigned/given to another person who will do with it what they will. Are there forms to fill out? What sort of identification should I get ready?

I've looked at the 1&1 documentation but it is pretty opaque. If anyone had a few point-form items to get me going that would be great. I'm fairly computer-savvy but outside of standalone app programming my skills kind of fall down.

How do I use data from data.gov?

Blandanomics — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:50:31 -0800

I'm a journalist with not much database programming experience. However I have been fascinated by the government and other agencies making their data available for developers to play with, and I think a newspaper could do wonders with this data. How do I get in on the fun? Transit agencies are making their times available the gov't just released records at data.gov.

What languages should I learn to manipulate these datasets to make some good applications and visualizations? Example I have in mind are the Guardians treatment of PM expenses and EveryBlock.

Should I learn Django, Ruby, Pyton? All? None?

Should I use Flex to make a front-end for a job board?

ckohrman — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:03:22 -0800

Are there any problems with building the front-end for a job board in Adobe Flex? The back-end for the site will be in Python (Django). And my programmer suggests to save time and money, we create the front-end interface with Adobe Flex. I know it used to be a bad idea to make an entire site in Flash... if I made the front-end in Flex, would I be setting myself up for problems? If so, what alternatives should I consider?

Which to use: PHP, Django, Rails or something else?

teracloth — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:53:10 -0800

What programming language or framework should I use for my simple Web database project? Here's my project: taking a database of local property assessment data and posting it, searchably and sortably, onto a usable public Web site. Ideally with goodies like a mobile-friendly version, links to Google Maps and so forth.

I want to do this, in part, because I want to learn skills that'll be useful in future public-facing Web projects.

I know HTML and can wrangle PHP about as well as I could speak Spanish after two years in high school. I messed around a little with Django back in 2006, but didn't seem to have the basic programming vocabulary that its creators assumed.

I've been running a couple Wordpress blogs off a Dreamhost server for a couple years, so the hosting is lined up.

There's no deadline, but I'm giving myself one week to work on this full-time.

Right now, I'm thinking of either:

- doing it all in PHP/MySQL (the boring and perhaps sloppy option)
- diving into Django again (the dogged option)
- trying to learn Rails, like the friends keep telling me (the A.D.D./ambitious option)

My questions:

- Are Django and Rails way too overpowered for this project?
- At this point, is Django looking like a dead end? Should I be investing my framework-learning energy in the broader Rails community?
- Should I be considering some other option altogether, such as Drupal?

Django hosting recomendations

phyle — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:39:47 -0800

Web hosting recomendations - Im very new to web development but have been slowly setting up a website with django and im starting to think about hosting. I know there are a lot of web dev people here so I thought it might be a good place to ask.
So my requirements are-
-Django friendly, perhaps with helpful support because I imagine I am going to run in to all sorts of technical problems.
-Apparently I will also need shell access so I can set up something called cron jobs? I have a python script Id like to run every hour or so that updates a database.
Thanks for any help!

get_thumbnail_dimensions_from_image()

Mach5 — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 17:47:33 -0800

Can one find the coordinates (x,y,height,width) of a thumbnail taken out of the original image, programmatically? I run a highly dynamic photo sharing website that takes thumbnails of the photos that users upload. It automatically uses the center of the photo as the thumbnail, 75px by 75px, but users can change it with a handy javascript applet. They can make the thumbnailified area bigger, but it forces them to keep the 1:1 ratio, and it's downsized if it is bigger than 75x75.

So here in lies the rub: I'm pushing a redesign, and the thumbnails are now 100x100. I was dumb and did not log the thumbnail dimensions. I'd really really really like those numbers, not only to make the thumbnails bigger and look less blurry, because I know we'll also eventually be printing these out, and I'm going to want a sharper image to send to the printer.

The big question: Can I get, with some software, the x, y, h, and w of the thumbnail with some sort of fuzzy image comparison? Can image magick do this? My language of choice is python, so anything using that will be cake.

Help me pick a web dev language to learn.

the_dude — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:31:15 -0800

I am trying to decide which web language + framework to focus on for learning this summer. I am stuck between PHP, Python (with Django maybe) or Ruby (on Rails). Basically, I am asking for people's input on all languages. They all have their ups and downs and I'm pretty sure I'll have to learn all of them at some point but I have start somewhere. Here is my initial perspective on all. Correct me, add relevant info and make suggestions.

PHP
+I actually have a passing knowledge of PHP. Not enough maybe to create something big but I have added small features, worked on cleaning other people's code
+It's very common.
-It somewhat seems unprofessional, probably because I feel like everyone and their mom has done something with it.

Ruby
+It's the new cool.
-It's the new cool.
+It seems very elegant and easy to learn, especially for developing something for the web with Rails.
+For some reason, the RoR community seems very friendly and I approve of their ideas a lot.

Python
+It's a lot more serious than Ruby, I feel like. It might be more useful for other things too as a standalone language
+Similar outlook on stuff with RoR community.
-Maybe not as big community for learning as it is with PHP and RoR. Not sure about this but others definitely have a lot of stuff.

Anyway, thanks a lot for reading along.

Also, if you would care to make a suggestion, I'd appreciate some books or websites to start things off with.

Here snakey, snakey, snake

zackola — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:17:23 -0800

What's the de facto python web framework in active development/use today? Hi, For my next small project, I've settled that I would like to use a python-based framework. What's the best one out there today? This isn't meant to start a flame war. I think I'm primarily looking at TurboGears, Django, and web.py. Web.py is appealing because of its small size and simplicity. However I am having trouble nailing down best practices in terms of application design. It is almost too free form to be considered a framework IMHO. I need structure and limitations! Also, I am worried about the lack of documentation and updates. On the other end of the spectrum TurboGears seems jam packed with features and doohickeys I'm not sure I'll ever need. What's anyone out there using? I'd love to hear your experiences and what you are using different frameworks for currently.