How To Learn Django / Python in a Month
Tags: django, python, webdev
Published: 2020-08-25 00:46:17

So quick disclaimer before jumping in. I had some background in coding but never really did it enough to get proficient at it. I learned originally in Java in High School but only played around with it in College for some projects. As such I had a decent understanding of some of the general concepts that might take someone more time to grasp. 

Now, on to the fun stuff. Around march I decided to quit my job (great timing, I know) to try and work on a company idea for a service to find [car shows on weekends](https://www.topmarq.com/events/). The problem was, I am an Electrical Engineer and really had never done any web development. 

Well, COVID happened and then Pluralsight offered a deal where April was free for everyone. I decided to take advantage of that by putting all of my time for the entire month into learning a combo of Django, Python and CSS/HTML/JS. 

I started with the intermediate Python course which I really enjoyed. Obviously if you're starting from ground 0 you will need to do the first course also but I thought they were really well done and easy to work along. With this I felt at least semi confident in playing around with basic python.
> [Beyond the basics](https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/python-beyond-basics/table-of-contents)

After that I moved into Django. I started with a good basic course called [Django Getting Started](https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/django-getting-started/table-of-contents). This was enough to get me going with a basic project and play around with various features. I also used some projects available on the web to play around after taking this course.

I wanted a bit more understanding of Django so I also took the code school django tutorial. [Try Django from codeschool](https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/code-school-try-django/table-of-contents). I thought this was ok but definitely less good than the others. I was already somewhat decent though so I fought through it and it definitely filled in a few gaps though so for a short course it's worth it. 

From there my last course was on Bootstrap cause I had no idea what it was or how to use it and i thought this [intro](https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/bootstrap-introduction/table-of-contents) was pretty good. 

Anyways, I was able to do this all free and I did it full time, but I definitely came out of April feeling ready to go. I made tons of mistakes on my first site, but I think you just have to pick a project and go for it so you have a goal. You can check out my site [Topmarq](https://www.topmarq.com) which is still almost 100% done by me. It may not be the best, but hey I just started!!

One thing I've really had a tough time with is the blog aspect. I think i should have integrated Wordpress or something but the articles are actually quite difficult to optimize and build according to current standards. For instance, my post about [car shows in Houston](https://www.topmarq.com/forum/6-great-car-shows-in-houston-that-you-just-can-t-miss-out-on-29) kept having various Title/H1/Meta/Etc tag issues because Django doesn't have a great way of doing this that im aware. Just an FYI if you're looking to create a blog on you Django app, maybe look for a plugin.