What I love about Django
A developer reflects on the enduring utility of the Django web framework, specifically praising its middleware abstraction and structured approach. The author highlights how Django's design allows it to remain effective and 'invisible' within a complex codebase.
Why it matters
Understanding the long-term maintainability of web frameworks is crucial for software architects and startup founders building scalable applications.
My goal at the onset of writing this essay was to celebrate the parts of Django that I, in Buttondown writ large, have found so useful and so enduring over the years.
One of the challenges in doing this is what I would describe as a fundamental asset of Django itself: that it is just the right level of opinionated and structured such that it becomes, over time, invisible. And I found it hard at first to squint at our codebase and point to "quote-unquote" Django things, because the Django part of the application blends so smoothly into the aspects that are simply Pythonic or simply business logic.
I do not look at Buttondown and see a Django app; I see a well-structured codebase with many things that have been solved by smarter people than myself. This, more than anything else, is what I love about Django.
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