Mastering the Django ORM

About This Tutorial

This tutorial will cover the Django ORM in depth; it’s designed to be accessible to anyone who’s worked through an introductory Django tutorial, but intermediate/slightly more experienced users of Django will probably get the most out of it.

This is a lecture-format tutorial, and will cover topics including:

• Elements of good database design: normalization and common patterns
• Best practices for model classes: how much business logic is too much, and how big should a model class get?
• “Thinking in ORM”: how to approach situations where you know the SQL you’d like to execute, but aren’t sure how to have the ORM do it
• When and how best to use custom managers and QuerySets
• Model inheritance and its pitfalls
• Implementing custom model field types and validation, and their advantages/disadvantages
• Working with users: Django’s default User model, custom user models, and implementing different types of users
• Performing complex queries, and how to take advantage of annotation and aggregation features
• The SQL expression API: wrapping arbitrary SQL and database features with ORM constructs for easier queries
• Migrations: understanding exactly what’s tracked, how the migration operations work, and when and how to use them manually
• Explanations of how the various layers and sub-components of the ORM work, and work together, to support each feature or API being discussed

Attendees will come away with a comprehensive knowledge of the Django ORM, guidelines for when and how to use its advanced features and customization points, and a deep understanding of how all its various parts fit together.