Book Image

Building SPAs with Django and HTML Over the Wire

By : Andros Fenollosa
4.5 (2)
Book Image

Building SPAs with Django and HTML Over the Wire

4.5 (2)
By: Andros Fenollosa

Overview of this book

The HTML over WebSockets approach simplifies single-page application (SPA) development and lets you bypass learning a JavaScript rendering framework such as React, Vue, or Angular, moving the logic to Python. This web application development book provides you with all the Django tools you need to simplify your developments with real-time results. You’ll learn state-of-the-art WebSocket techniques to realize real-time applications with minimal reliance on JavaScript. This book will also show you how to create a project with Docker from the ground up, test it, and deploy it on a server. You’ll learn how to create a project, add Docker, and discover development libraries, Django channels, and bidirectional communication, and from then, on you’ll create real projects of all kinds using HTML over WebSockets as a chat app or a blog with real-time comments. In addition, you’ll modernize your development techniques by moving from using an SSR model to creating web pages using WebSockets over HTML. With Django, you’ll be able to create SPAs with professional real-time projects where the logic is in Python. By the end of this Django book, you’ll be able to build real-time applications, as well as gaining a solid understanding of WebSockets with Django.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Started with Python
4
Part 2: WebSockets in Django
8
Part 3: HTML over WebSockets
11
Part 4: Simplifying the frontend with Stimulus

Summary

We could consider this chapter as a consummation of all the skills acquired throughout the book. Not only are we able to incorporate a WebSockets server into Django, through channels; we now also have techniques to create a real-time, single-page application using Python. We now have a deep knowledge that matches the results we can achieve with other similar projects, such as LiveView in Phoenix (the most popular framework in the Elixir ecosystem), StimulusReflex, Turbo, Action Cable, or Hotwire in Ruby on Rails.

If we are looking to abstract part of the process, there are some frameworks within Django that can be useful, such as Django Sockpuppet or Django Reactor. Unfortunately, neither of them is receiving updates, although it is a great idea to find out how they are constructed in order to further expand our knowledge.

Although the backend is covered, it is still cumbersome to work with the frontend. Events have to be redeclared on every draw, and there are tasks...