fidzu : Django

A handy abstraction inside GeoDjango is the D object. It converts from more units than you knew existed into other units. (complete list) We'll be using it quite a bit as we do various queries. >>> from django.contrib.gis.measure import D … Continue reading →

10 Nov 2011 12:00pm GMT

If you're managing your own servers, and you don't use a tool like Chef, you're crazy. It's just that simple. We've been using Chef here at Yipit for about 6 months, and when I think about provisioning a new server with our old load book, I cringe. There were some pretty high upfront costs to learning read more »

09 Nov 2011 9:27pm GMT

Coming to DC?

09 Nov 2011 8:07pm GMT

We have data, we know how to take what our user is providing us, it's time to stitch the two together and find things nearby. The easiest option is to simply let the database order them. >>> from django.contrib.gis.geos import … Continue reading →

09 Nov 2011 12:00pm GMT

Developing web applications is a little like learning how to ollie a skateboard. You try, and try, and try. Then you try again.

And then something clicks. You land the trick. But you don't understand why.

This has been my experience writing code. I know what I want to do, and through brute force I hammer away at a solution until something works.

But why does it work? That's where Stack Overflow and it's wonderful community comes in.

Let me be clear: I'm no computer scientist. I have a diverse background that includes public relations and journalism in addition to web development. But I know HTML, CSS and JavaScript very well.

This trifecta led me into higher-level development languages like Python, and the wonderful framework Django a few years ago.

Perhaps it's my tenacious journalist attitude that keeps my head beating against the wall in an attempt to solve problems. Whatever it is, I'm thankful there exists helpful communities on the web.

Stack Overflow is a question and answer website where developers of any language can pose a mud-pit scenario from which they can't seem to escape. If the question is well-crafted, and tagged appropriately, answers glom like flies on cow pies, sometimes in less than 30 minutes.

But there's a twist to this time-tested formula: The user posing the question, and the community at large, determines what answer is ultimately correct.

Noobs earn points by participating in discussions, posing questions and more. This enables them to vote up answers and interact further. Experts can even parley their points into jobs offers.

By using a game mechanics, Stack Overflow culls the riffraff and sets up competition between dedicated users.

Whatever it is, it sure helps me break through some damn-tough (for me) problems.

And bonus: Stack Overflow QA are highly ranked in Google search results. In fact, they're often listed just after the official docs.

I'm still a rookie with only six questions and 63 points to my name. But I'm sold on this invaluable resource for web developers of any skill level.

Not a developer? There's a Stack Exchange for that. In fact, it covers everything from cooking to bicycles.

Have you used Stack Overflow or another resource for blasting through roadblocks with your code? Tell me about it in the comments.

09 Nov 2011 8:38am GMT

09 Nov 2011 6:00am GMT

One of my favorite libraries for doing geo in Python is GeoPY. It's able to do one of the next tools we need in our toolbox, plus a few others. What is this new tool? Geocoding. Geocoding is the process … Continue reading →

08 Nov 2011 12:00pm GMT

Now that we have a couple sources of information in our database, we'll look at mashing up the data. If I need to determine all of the campgrounds available during a trip to Kansas, I can do that with the … Continue reading →

07 Nov 2011 12:00pm GMT

Many moons ago on this blog I wrote about a simple menuing system for Django. For the sake of convenience, I've just packaged up that code (plus a few minor improvements) into a package named django-menu which is also available via PyPi with pip install django-menu. Basic documentation is included in the package and in the git repository.

06 Nov 2011 4:50am GMT

Before we move on to querying and displaying, let's look at how to get data into the database from "bare metal" - as nice as LayerMapping is not everything is in a shapefile, and using other formats has a few … Continue reading →

04 Nov 2011 10:00am GMT

Many thanks to Joe Jasinski and Eric van Zanten for their presentations on GeoDjango at November's Chicago Djangonauts meetup.

Joe kicked off the evening with his presentation, Introduction to GeoDjango. The presentation was based on his recent blog post GeoDjango Quickstart. Joe has also provided his presentation slides.

After ...

04 Nov 2011 2:18am GMT

There's a lot of fun geospatial data out there once you start looking, and the biggest format you'll find (particularly when dealing with government sources) is the Shapefile. Shapefiles are a proprietary but documented standard created by ESRI, the giant of … Continue reading →

03 Nov 2011 10:00am GMT

Code Month: Day one

02 Nov 2011 5:20pm GMT

Before we can store geographic information about or query for an object we have to know what we're storing or querying by. So what do we choose? If we're storing the location of an object, a models.PointField is your best … Continue reading →

02 Nov 2011 11:00am GMT

Django is a very cool web development framework which comes with its own lightweight development server which is best for testing the application. But when it comes to deploying the application for the outer world, more efficient and secure web … Continue reading →

01 Nov 2011 7:28pm GMT

Please join me this month as we dive head first into building things with Python (and Django) emphasizing location information. I hope at the end of this you're up to speed on building basic location-aware web apps and no longer … Continue reading →

01 Nov 2011 11:00am GMT