Django Fundamentals

What is Django, and Why Use a Framework?

Writing a real website in plain Python means solving the same problems every project needs — Django solves most of them for you, so you can focus on what makes YOUR site different.

URLs and Views

A URL pattern says "when someone visits this address, run this piece of code" — that piece of code is called a view.

Templates

A template is mostly ordinary HTML, with a small bit of extra syntax that lets you drop in real data and repeat or branch based on it.

Models & the ORM

A Model is a Python class that represents a database table — Django's ORM lets you query and save data using normal Python, with no SQL required.

Forms

Django's Form classes handle displaying an HTML form AND validating what comes back — both from the same definition.

The Django Admin & Basic CRUD

Django can generate a working admin panel for managing your data automatically, from just a few lines — and CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) is just as short in regular views.

ModelForms: Forms That Match Your Models

A ModelForm builds an entire form directly from a Model's fields — so you never have to declare the same fields twice and keep both copies in sync by hand.

User Authentication: Login, Logout, and Registration

Django ships with a complete, battle-tested authentication system out of the box — you almost never need to write your own password hashing or session handling.

Template Inheritance, Tags, and Filters

Copy-pasting the same header and navigation into every single template is exactly the repetition Django's template inheritance exists to eliminate.

Class-Based Views vs Function-Based Views

Every view so far has been a plain function — Django also lets you write views as classes, which can save real repetition for common patterns like "list all of these" or "show one of these".

Mini Project: Adding Comments to a Blog Post

Let's connect everything from this course into one real feature — a Model, a ForeignKey relationship, a ModelForm, a view, and a template — by adding comments to a blog post.