Introduction to Full Stack Web Development with Python and Django

Course Objectives

This course is approximately 50% hands-on, combining expert lecture, real-world demonstrations and group discussions with machine-based practical labs and exercises.  Our engaging instructors and mentors are highly experienced practitioners who bring years of current "on-the-job" experience into every classroom.  Working in a hands-on learning environment, guided by our expert team, attendees will learn to:

• Develop full-stack web sites based on content stored in an RDMS
• Use python data types appropriately
• Define data models
• Understand the architecture of a Django-based web site
• Create Django templates for easy-to-modify views
• Map views to URLs
• Take advantage of the built-in Admin interface
• Provide HTML form processing

Course Prerequisites

This introductory-level Python course is geared for experienced web developers new to Python who want to use Python and Django for full stack web development projects.

Course Outline

Please note that this list of topics is based on our standard course offering, evolved from typical industry uses and trends. We’ll work with you to tune this course and level of coverage to target the skills you need most.

1. The Python Environment

• Starting Python
• Using the interpreter
• Running a Python script
• Python scripts on Unix/Windows
• Editors and IDEs

2. Getting Started

• Using variables
• Built in functions
• Strings
• Numbers
• Converting among types
• Writing to the screen
• Command line parameters

3. Flow Control

• About flow control
• White space
• Conditional expressions
• Relational and Boolean operators
• While loops
• Alternate loop exits

4. Lists and Tuples

• About sequences
• Lists and list methods
• Tuples
• Indexing and slicing
• Iterating through a sequence
• Sequence functions, keywords, and operators
• List comprehensions
• Nested sequences

5. Working with Files

• File overview
• The with statement
• Opening a text file
• Reading a text file
• Writing to a text file
• Raw (binary) data

6. Dictionaries and Sets

• About dictionaries
• Creating dictionaries
• Iterating through a dictionary
• About sets
• Creating sets
• Working with sets

7. Functions

• About sequences
• Function parameters
• Global variables
• Global scope
• Returning values
• Sorting data

8. Errors and Exception Handling

• Syntax errors
• Exceptions
• Using try/catch/else/finally
• Handling multiple exceptions
• Ignoring exceptions

9. Using Modules

• The import statement
• Module search path
• Zipped libraries
• Creating Modules
• Function and Module aliases

10. Classes

• About o-o programming
• Defining classes
• Constructors
• Instance methods and data
• Class/static methods and data
• Inheritance

11. Django Architecture

• Sites and apps
• Shared configuration
• Minimal Django layout
• Built in flexibility

12. Configuring a Project

• Executing manage.py
• Starting the project
• Database setup
• The development server

13. Adding an Application

• Generate the application files
• Defining models
• Related objects
• SQL Migration
• App configuration
• Accessing models

14. Login for Nothing and Admin for Free

• Setting up the admin user
• Running the admin site
• Tweaking the admin interface
• Changing the admin index page

15. Basic Views (AKA Controllers)

• What is a view
• HttpResponse
• URL route configuration
• Shortcut: get_object_or_404()

16. Basic Views (AKA Templates)

• About templates
• Django template syntax
• Static files
• Loading templates
• The url tag
• Shortcut: template.render()

17. Querying the Models

• QuerySets
• Field lookups
• Chaining filters
• Slicing QuerySets
• Related fields
• Q objects

18. Working with Templates

• Variable lookups
• Comments
• Inheritance
• Filters
• Escaping HTML
• Custom filters

19. Forms

• Forms overview
• GET and POST
• The Form class
• Processing the form
• Widgets
• Validation
• Forms in templates
• Beyond the basics

20. Automated Testing

• Why create tests?
• When to create tests
• Using Django's test framework
• Using the test client
• Running tests
• Checking code coverage