Prologue

Every developer seems to go through a few distinct phases in his or her journey of firstly learning and then implementing.

When I first started learning Django, there was… too much information. I couldn’t run out of resources to learn from and I’d hear something new in every article I read or tutorial I watched.

Historically Accurate Depiction Of Me Learning Django

That changed though, I hit the ceiling of what I could learn by watching other people or reading about their experiences. I was at a point where I had to make my own experiences and learn from those instead. Which may not be such a bad thing… except for the fact that the thought of Studying Documentation frightens me.

Documentation is perfect for when you want something to happen and you just want to know how to make it happen. But what do you do when you don’t even know what you want. That is my drive behind this series.

This series of articles will revolve around aspects of the Django Rest Framework that are NOT taught in tutorials. Things that you are expected to learn on your own… without even knowing that they exist.

My aim with this publication is to build a bridge between where those tutorials leave you, and where the industry expects you to be.

Here’s a quick rundown of what I hope to cover:

1. GenericViewSets — The top of your toolbox.
2. Routers — DRF can handle your endpoints.
3. Serializers — Beyond the Basics.
4. Permissions and Groups — Handling Hierarchy.
5. Caching and Throttling — Moderating API Interactions.
6. Documentation — Is not that painful.

Each of the above subtopics will have a few articles under them but we will not cover the basics. I will mention the topics I assume you are familiar with at the beginning of each article.

I will put up links to the documentation in each article, because this series is not an alternative to the docs. It’s a window that tells you what exists and a little bit of how to use it.

Let’s get to that bridge.