MVC and django fundamentals

Question

Pretty new to this scene and trying to find some documentation to adopt best practices. We\'re building a fairly large content site which will consist of various media catalogs

Answer 1

"data / architectural models so that we can get a better idea of the approach we should use using a framework we've never made use of before"

Django imposes best practices on you. You don't have a lot of choices and can't make a lot of mistakes.

MVC (while a noble aspiration) is implemented as follows:

• Data is defined in "models.py" files using the Django ORM models.
• urls.py file maps URL to view function. Pick your URL's wisely.
• View function does all processing, making use of models and methods in models
• Presentation (via HTML templates) invoked by View function. Essentially no processing can be done in presentation, just lightweight iteration and decision-making

The model is defined for you. Just stick to what Django does naturally and you'll be happy.

Architecturally, you usually have a stack like this.

• Apache does two things.

  • serves static content directly and immediately
  • hands dynamic URL to Django (via mod_python, mod_wsgi or mod_fastcgi). Django apps map URL to view functions (which access to database (via ORM/model) and display via templates.

• Database used by Django view functions.

The architecture is well-defined for you. Just stick to what Django does naturally and you'll be happy.

Feel free to read the Django documentation. It's excellent; perhaps the best there is.