Django for newborn babies

When I started learning Django framework (a python based web framework), I was totally lost with hundreds of links and books. I was very confused about where to start learning. Hence I wasted a lot of my time in random tutorials and articles. The mistake that I made, in the beginning, was that I was reading anything from anywhere without any order.

So to save your time and not repeate the same mistake as I did, here are curated lists of resources (in order) to learn Django framework step by step for a complete beginner. Feel free to skip any step which you already know.

Disclaimer: This guide is designed for complete beginners. If you are already a Django developer and want to make this guide better, I would love to see you on the contributor's list. :)

Table of contents

• What is it? An introduction
• Things to learn before Django
  • How to use command line (basics)
  • Git & GitHub basics
  • Learn Markdown
  • Python basics
  • Debugging
• Learning Django
  • Django Girls tutorial
  • Django Polls tutorial
  • Django full course for beginners
  • What's next? Resources and guide
• Contributions

What is it? An introduction

If you are new to web development and want to learn Django framework, then this guide is for you.

It's a common problem for beginners to wonder what to do and where to start before learning new technology. So to save time on searching and wondering, this guide will help you learn Django framework.

Please note "This guide is for absolute beginners."

Things to learn before Django

Instead of directly jumping into Django development, you need to have some prerequisite knowledge. Here are some of my suggestions

• How to use command line (basics)

  Learning command line will help you a lot. You'll see that in most of the Django tutorials, everyone uses the command line. If you don't know command line, it will be too difficult to follow along with those tutorials.
  
  Here are some suggested resources

  • Linux Tutorial - Basic Command Line (video)
  • Beginner's Guide to the Bash Terminal (video) For Windows 10 users, here's how you can run Linux command on your machine
  • How to Run Linux/Bash on Windows 10 Using the Built-In Windows Subsystem for Linux

• Learn Git & GitHub basics

  After learning basic command line, you need to learn the version-control system. Git is one of the most popular version-control-system. It is used for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people.
  
  Here are some suggested resources

  • Git Tutorial for Beginners: Command-Line Fundamentals(video)
  • Git & GitHub Crash Course For Beginners (video)
  • If you have enough time
    • Git & GitHub Tutorials Playlist

• Learn Markdown

  Markdown is a lightweight markup language with plain text formatting syntax. It will help you document your project and other stuff. For example, this guide is written in markdown.
  
  Here are some suggested resources

  • Markdown Crash Course (video)
  • Markdown Cheatsheet

• Python basics

  Django framework is built on top of Python programming language. Hence knowledge of Python basics is a must. If you don't know Python programming language, it will be difficult for you to learn Django framework.
  
  Here are some suggested resources

  • Python Programming For Beginners: crash course (video)
  • Python OOP Tutorials - Working with Classes (video)

• Debugging

  It's common to get stuck due to some bug etc. at some point while you're developing your project. So knowing how to debug your code may be a lot helpful and will save tons of time.
  
  Here are some suggested resource for debugging

  • 5 Debugging Tips Every Developer Should Know

Learning Django

After you've some prerequisite knowledge, now you can start learning Django framework. Here are the steps:

• Django Girls tutorial (reading)
  

  This tutorial is highly recommended for beginners who have just started learning Django. This tutorial will teach you from the working of the internet to the deployment of your Django project to the internet. You will make a Blog app in Django
  
  I suggest reading line by line to fully understand this tutorial.
  
  You can skip those sections which you already know. (Such as Command line, git, python etc)

• Django Polls tutorial (reading)
  

  This should be your second destination to learn Django. It's a polls app tutorial from the official Django Documentation website.

• Python Django Web Framework - Full Course for Beginners (video)
  

  A 4 hours long video to learn Django framework for beginners.

• What's next? Resources and guide
  

  After completing the above three tutorials, I highly recommend starting building projects on your own. Reading and watching too many online tutorials won't help you learning unless you build stuff on your own.
  
  For further study here are some resources

  • Official Django documentation (For reference)
  • Two Scoops of Django 1.11: Best Practices for the Django Web Framework (book)
  • Django 2 by Example: Build powerful and reliable Python web applications from scratch (book)

Contribution

Any kind of contribution to make this guide better is most welcome. If you want to contribute, please follow this guideline.

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