At the Forge - Database Modeling with Django

from django.template import Context, loader
from django.http import HttpResponse

from blog.models import Posting
from datetime import *

def index(request):
    postings = Posting.objects.all().order_by("-publication_date")
    output = ""

    for posting in postings:
        output += "<h1>%s</h1>\n" % posting.title
        output += "<h2>%s</h2>\n" % posting.publication_date.isoformat()
        output += "<p>%s</p>\n\n\n" % posting.body

    return HttpResponse(output)

You can try all of these database queries for yourself using Django's shell:

python manage.py shell

Using the Django shell, as opposed to the straight interactive Python interface, ensures that Django-related classes and paths are preloaded, making it possible to query and modify the database from within Python interactively. This is a good way to experiment with new code that you are thinking of adding to a view method, without having to place it in a file.

Django provides a high-level interface for the definition of database models using Python, rather than SQL. This high-level API permeates the framework, making it possible to work exclusively in Python. Moreover, the API includes many convenience functions and data types that make it relatively natural to work in this way. Creating database-backed Web applications with Django is dramatically easier and better than with most frameworks I've used, although it is similar in style to Ruby on Rails. Whether you should use Django or Rails is a matter of personal taste and also depends on what others in your organization are using, but there's no doubt that if you're a Python Web/database hacker, Django is worth a very serious look.