I think I've been using Python for close to 12 years now, and it's been my favorite language for much of that time (I've given 2 keynotes and one or two talks at the Python conferences. It's by far my favorite language to consult in). Long enough to get used to the fact that people typically don't get it ("Yes, I always indent my code like that anyway, but I could never use a language that REQUIRED it!").
In fact, being misunderstood by the world at large is almost de rigeur in the Python culture. So it's surprising when the world seems to occasionally get it.
Another example: this year's Pycon T-shirt was taken from the xkcd webcomic.
I'm not into Django myself; I'm more interested in the flexibility of the approach taken by TurboGears 2 (I just spent a significant amount of time cleaning up the TurboGears 2 Wiki Tutorial). However, I think the combination of choices offered by Django + TurboGears covers people's needs better than a single monolithic approach, and Django appears to be the right solution for a large portion of the applications out there.
> "Yes, I always indent my code like that anyway, but I could never use a language that REQUIRED it!"
That comment had me laughing out loud. It's the typical complaint you get from somebody who wants to complain about Python but has a hard time finding any real arguments. Classic.
Regarding Django: It's great to see Django picking up so much steam. I've done a few Django projects and I'm really impressed by it. It really takes advantage of Python's strenghts. Anybody thinking about creating a web application should check it out. Highly recommended.
I have also just started looking into Django, after dabbling about with TurboGears. So far, it appears to be very nice.
What is most noticeable is the good documentation that's available for Django including an entire book that you can read for free online. I'm going through this right now, and it's definitely been one of the deciding factors for me to focus on Django.
This just goes to show that good documentation is a huge factor when gaining users and participation in open source projects.
Absolutely. In TurboGears 2 (in combination with Pylons) there's a concerted effort to create better documentation; we had a mini documentation sprint for it at Pycon.
A couple of years ago, I created a web app starting with CherryPy, CherryPy Template, SQLObject, mySQL and a couple other bits like Fredrik Lundh's Imaging module (http://calgarybikeroots.org). It was a lot of work, and much of the work was due to the lack of adequate documentation. So when the TurboGears book came out, I picked up a copy, and this month started a new web app with it as a guide. Progress has been *much* faster thanks to the framework, the book, and the documentation wiki, not to mention the excellent support I've received in the TurboGears forum in GoogleGroups.
I'm heartened by the success of Django and the recent appearance of a book for it as well. Sure, it competes with Turbogears, but it's also expanding the number of Python users, and that can only be a good thing.
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