Simon posts another Django snippet, this one a demonstration of how simple it is to create row-level permissions using newforms-admin. Here, he has a simple blog entry model and sets up the admin such that users can only edit entries they authored. Visit site »
A Django schema evolution tool created by Simon Willison and the team at Global Radio (formerly GCap Media), dmigrations looks great. It really seems to cover all the bases. I’ve yet to use any of the Django migration tools, but I’m really anxious to watch the video of the DjangoCon panel on the topic and see how each one might work for me. Visit site »
Handy bits by Simon Willison to make Django work a little cleaner when using forms with an HTML doctype (instead of XHTML). Personally, I think Django should default to HTML, but I bet this matter was argued ad nasuem in some Google Groups thread a year ago and XHTML won out (almost certainly at the chagrin of James Bennett). Am I right? Am I? :) Visit site »
Former Yahoo and Lawrence Journal World developer Simon Willison has been recruited by Guardian News & Media as a software architect.
Big congrats to Simon, one of the smartest and nicest guys this industry has to offer. Sounds like a great gig. I can’t help but wonder: will we see a Django-powered Guardian in the future? ;) Visit site »
Simon talks about some of the killer features of the Django ORM, including chaining and laziness. For what its worth, I love the Django ORM and virtually never write a line of SQL because of it. I know a lot of people complain that it’s not as robust as SQL Alchemy, but for my needs, it’s perfect. It’s easy to use, and I’ve only run into one situation I couldn’t handle with it (and, Django gives you the ability to write straight SQL, when you do run into that situation). Visit site »
It seems as though Yahoo! and Flickr are set to start providing OpenID services. This is huge. Visit site »
Simon seems poised to do for jQuery what he has done for OpenID. Visit site »
Besides Mark’s writing, take a look at the comments, especially where Simon Willison gets in on the action. Simon seems to share my view that non-semantic class name may be a necessary evil — and he articulates the position well. It’s not that we think semantics are unimportant, it’s just that we also think practically is important. Simon says:
(The non-semantic nature of Blueprint’s class naming scheme) does bother me, but what bothers me more is how incredibly difficult it is to write maintainable CSS that can be updated and managed by a team of people.
Exactly. Visit site »
A killer tutorial done by Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Jeremy Dunck, and Simon WIllison at OSCON yesterday. Tons of great “advanced” Django topics are covered, including middleware, signals, scaling, AJAX, and more. Great stuff. Visit site »
Simon Willison, “Identity Crusader”, continues his OpenID evangelism with a kick-ass TechTalk at Google. Visit site »
Simon posted his slides from his @media presentation over the weekend, but he’s now posted a shot blog entry on the talk. He discussed local news coverage, and used LJWorld.com and Lawrence.com as his examples. Visit site »
Simon did a short presentation on why good online local news coverage requires a dedicated, focused, talented and most of all, local team. He used our work at the Lawrence Journal-World as the basis for the presentation (Simon worked at the Journal-World for a year while he was studying here in the states). Thanks for the props, Simon! Visit site »
Simon continues his OpenID evangelism by releasing a package that makes it easy to turn any Django application into an OpenID consumer. Awesome. Visit site »
Simon has a nice piece on good URLs, and especially the idea that you should never have two “real” URLs that point to the same place (instead, you should have one “real” URL and one redirect to the real URL). One of my favorite things about the new-fangled web app frameworks like Rails and Django is their encouragement of good, readable URLs. Good URLs are important. Use them! Visit site »
If ever there was a man on a mission to see a technology take off, it’s Simon Willison. His latest project lets you use your Y! username and password as an OpenID. Badass. And yes, it’s Django-powered. :) Visit site »
More on OpenID by Django co-creator Simon Willison. Great stuff! I sooo hope more people start implementing this. Visit site »
Simon has a great piece on how to turn your blog into an open ID. I definitely intend to do this. Thanks, Simon! Visit site »
The ever-brilliant Simon moves to a new domain and a new CMS — one he wrote, naturally — in Django. Visit site »