Why I still use Django

Django 20th birthday Django just completed 20 years last July, 13rd. That's a decent amount of time for a piece of technology that's still being developed, promoted and used. Happy birthday, Django!

See, that's why I use it. I mean, that's not the only reason but, that's a pretty good one.

Also, I like Python. A lot. I made a pretty decent living developing in Java. Long story short, I was introduced to Java in my early professional life. One thing led to another, one project led to other, skills were being developed, Java was in a crescent so, there I was.

A few years ago I was tired of the verbosity of Java. Small projects were a daunting task since all Java frameworks (Spring Boot being the main one), were focusing on REST APIs. That meant I had to create a API and a Javascript frontend. And, by JS frontend, I mean Vue or React. That was a whole lot of work for 1 guy trying to build some side projects.

So, I was looking around for something to make this burden easier. I had never touched Python but Django seemed a pretty good option. I was skeptic to go straight into it since, as I mentioned, it was and "old" framework. I decided to give it a try so I could prove to myself that I was able to create a simple project with it. And, oh boy, I was sold. As a side effect, I learned Python.

From that day on, I'm still enjoying it so much. I had the opportunity to create some production systems with it. They are working so fine. Even with the client's requested changes, it is so easy to maintain.

In great part because, following Django philosophy, I kept things simple. I try very hard no to fight the framework. I chose my stack carefully so that I can keep focus on the problems I have to solve, not the technology.

So far I'm very happy. I have nothing to complain. I'm making a living from it. I intend to keep it that way and Django community keep pushing it slowly but steadily forward. My next step is to make myself prepared and available to give back to the framework and to the community. I'm starting to answer questions on Reddit whenever I can. I'm thinking on creating content so I can help beginners since it appears to be an issue inside the community.

So, that's why. Django is really a nice tool. It's still with us. It still is "The web framework for perfectionists with deadlines".

And I have deadlines. 😉