Django Suitability

[Matthew Talbert]

Hi all,

I am being considered for a project that would involve re-writing an application which is currently in MS Access/VBA. The application is an order entry/shop management software for a small vertical market. I am strongly in favor of using Django for the project and one of the principles is mostly convinced that will be fine. The other wants a third-party (who currently develop applications with Servoy) to check into Django/Python and evaluate it for its suitability for this project. The requirements for the project are these:

1. Rapid development
2. Stability
3. Ease of use
4. Customer access including order entry (currently orders can only be entered by staff)
5. Remote access via smart phone

My questions are these:

1. Is there anyone out there who has used Django and Servoy?
2. Has anyone done an order entry system (not pinax) or accounting system (I know of the projects on google code) or interfaced with legacy systems with Django?
3. There seems to be a concern that Django isn't used by "big names". Are there big names using Django (other than the newspapers and google)? I have looked through django sites quite a bit and found a few universities but not a lot else.
4. I welcome any other comments, thoughts, opinions, or references as to the suitability of Django for this project.

I apologize if any/all of this is redundant. I am a big fan of Django, so thanks to all the developers and community!

Matthew

[Peter Bengtsson]

On Oct 22, 3:56 pm, "Matthew Talbert" <ransom1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am being considered for a project that would involve re-writing an
> application which is currently in MS Access/VBA. The application is an order
> entry/shop management software for a small vertical market. I am strongly in
> favor of using Django for the project and one of the principles is mostly
> convinced that will be fine. The other wants a third-party (who currently
> develop applications with Servoy) to check into Django/Python and evaluate
> it for its suitability for this project. The requirements for the project
> are these:
>
> 1. Rapid development
> 2. Stability
> 3. Ease of use
> 4. Customer access including order entry (currently orders can only be
> entered by staff)
> 5. Remote access via smart phone
>

Those requirements would fit any decent web framework except the Java
ones :)

> My questions are these:
>
> 1. Is there anyone out there who has used Django and Servoy?
> 2. Has anyone done an order entry system (not pinax) or accounting system (I
> know of the projects on google code) or interfaced with legacy systems with
> Django?

Building one at the moment. Nothing to share though since there's
nothing specific about it. It just a web app.

> 3. There seems to be a concern that Django isn't used by "big names". Are
> there big names using Django (other than the newspapers and google)? I have
> looked through django sites quite a bit and found a few universities but not
> a lot else.

Google banked on Django when they built the Google App Engine.

> 4. I welcome any other comments, thoughts, opinions, or references as to the
> suitability of Django for this project.
>

Key is PYTHON. Django is very modular and loosely couple and you get
immediate access to the world of Python in your models and views and
then only the sky is the limit.
If there's a Python module for ODBC, Access, etc. then YES it can be
used in Django.

[Matthew Talbert]

I don't know much about the Java frameworks. Could you expound? It is
interesting to me because Servoy is a Java framework which claims to
allow a desktop client or web client with the same codebase. I can't
really find anyone who is using it for a public-facing website,
however.

> Those requirements would fit any decent web framework except the Java
> ones :)
>

Could you share approximately how big your project is? I know it's
hard to find a real measure for this, but how about number of database
tables?

> Building one at the moment. Nothing to share though since there's
> nothing specific about it. It just a web app.
>

I don't actually need to link to access as this will be a complete rewrite.

> Key is PYTHON. Django is very modular and loosely couple and you get
> immediate access to the world of Python in your models and views and
> then only the sky is the limit.
> If there's a Python module for ODBC, Access, etc. then YES it can be
> used in Django.
>

I am already sold on Django/Python, but my question is are there good
descriptions of the benefits written for non-technical people?
Benefits of Django as well as the whole idea of a web app.

Thanks,
Matthew

[Kenneth Gonsalves]

On Wednesday 22 October 2008 08:26:06 pm Matthew Talbert wrote:
> 2. Has anyone done an order entry system (not pinax) or accounting system
> (I know of the projects on google code) or interfaced with legacy systems
> with Django?

also look at satchmo

--
regards
KG
http://lawgon.livejournal.com

[Dj Gilcrease]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 9:51 PM, Matthew Talbert <ranso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Could you share approximately how big your project is? I know it's
> hard to find a real measure for this, but how about number of database
> tables?

A project I worked on over the summer used a Database that was 130
tables, and getting 1gb updates every 2 minutes. I was witting a new
web app to do calculations on the data and the company wanted to use
Java since thats what they knew best and had spend huge amounts of
money (1 mil +) to support with Sun Servers, and such. But I knew
python and django would be a better fit for this particular app, but
the boss wouldnt listen. So we had 10 Developers working on the Java
version (Including me) and over 3 months we got it about 85% done,
though it had no unit tests. During the same three months, I worked on
my own time after work and basically had no life for the whole time, I
was able to get the web app 100% complete with unit tests. That
convinced my boss that Django was a good fit.

The site is an internal app that I cannot give access to (And I
actually had to get permission to give what info I have), but I can
say that Django is a suitable framework for what you are looking for.

[Matthew Talbert]

Thanks, Dj, that is helpful.

[Adam Nelson]

Matt,

I feel your pain. It's probably not best on the Django forum to say
this but:

1. Any modern framework is fine (Cake/PHP, Django/Python, Merb/Ruby,
etc...)
2. Use a framework of some sort (don't just roll with 'Java' without
some sort of web-specific framework for your needs)
3. Any real database will work (i.e. Access will not do and should not
be used for any web application ever - SQL Server is an amazing
database if you're stuck in a Windows only environment and there is
cash to throw around).

What really matters is:

1. Comfort level of the developers who will be working on the product
with whatever framework
2. Comfort level of the systems administrators and the rest of the
organization who will be supporting it after you leave

Finally:

1. Django is just a front end for Python. Places using Python include
Nasa. It is also a standard language in all modern UNIX systems -
which says alot about how solid it is and how it's here to stay.

-Adam