Skip to main content

Learning Backend WebDev, Log #7 - Owning All the Rows

Let’s get on with today’s log!
I studied only Django today.
Was plagued with rains and power cuts and family stuff.
Managed to work well and patiently though.

What I learnt in Django land.
#

  • Owned Rows, that opened my eyes into another dimension to begin with.
  • While I knew that Django supports multiple users, it struck home today, that I was the one to write all the code that supported all those users. All the exercises so far, were just build a view, show some data.
  • And now I realise, Oh! I cannot let Tom edit Jerry’s cheese details, nor can Spike get into Tom’s house. I need to be the one that guards against all that. Owned rows are one way I can do this. They will let logged in users edit or delete rows that belong to them only. Not the others.
  • I subclassed stuff, which let me drill OOP concepts like inheritance a bit more.
  • Finally, I learnt about DRY in action where I let the parent classes do all the heavy lifting, while I wrote a tiny class that let me tweak stuff just the way I liked it.
  • Finally, finally, I learnt the amount of work Django saves me and just how much power is there under the hood.

Focus Follow Up aka How did I fare today and how do I feel now at the end of the day?
#

  • Did eight, 30 minute sessions of learning Django.
  • Had three aborted sessions, when I got ridiculously distracted.
  • If you want to know, why I abort and start over, I kinda go over this, in this post.
  • So worked about the same time (or less) as I did yesterday. I feel like I learnt a bit more, than I did yesterday.
  • I’ve begun writing scratch notes as I look at the videos. This makes it more slowgoing, but I internalise stuff a more. I think. I’ll see if this helps.
  • Energy wise, this is still sustainable. I feel good still at the end of the day. Not drained and exhausted.
  • Also I think I’m getting the grasp of this. I keep pausing the videos and then trying to predict stuff. I find myself being right, more and more frequently. Today was the first time I yelled at Dr. Chuck for typing in the model name wrong 😂
  • I only wish I had begun much, much, much earlier in life, when all these things were beginning and then grown with the Django project. I wish I was not as intimidated about programming being the domain of ‘smart’ people, when I was young. I wish I had more patience, as I traverse what seems like a never ending road of learning with no end in sight, with new things to learn, every half a mile. I wish I could get over this big mountain of basic fundamentals with a snap of my fingers. But I can’t. So I’ll do the next best thing. Show up. And do the work.