I'm jumping in because I initially learned Django on Windows, and used it for development for almost two years.
I don't think this is a Django issue. As a beginner, the things that really messed with me weren't Django specific - they were parts of the Python ecosystem that are just terrible on Windows. Finding the right Python-MySQL installer (there are bugs in setuptools that means you can't pip install anything with C-extensions), is hard and makes no sense. Downloading the tar and running setup.py install (the instructions you see on the download page) was the easy part. So at least from my point of view, if you want to make Django easier for Windows users to get started on, the best target is an easier way to get a sane Python environment on Windows without digging through blog posts and trying to find the right installers for every package with C-extensions. After that, "pip install django, startproject, runserver" are easy instructions to follow even if you're not familiar with the command line. Cheers, Jason On Saturday, December 22, 2012 7:38:25 PM UTC-5, James Bennett wrote: > > On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Kevin Veroneau > <kver...@gmail.com<javascript:>> > wrote: > > I believe, it would be most beneficial for the Django website to provide > > such an option. I bet most Windows users who hear about Django visit > the > > website, but don't see a download link for their system. These users > will > > either seek help on how to set it up or it will deter them from > exploring > > Django further. The latter is what we, as a community do not want to > see. > > We would like prospect developers to at least explore the development > > environment and see what it's all about before making the choice of not > > using it > > My own personal opinion on this kind of issue is, basically, that like > it or not Django is becoming the introduction to Python for a lot of > people. That means there's a responsibility to get those new users > started off in a way that will let them stick to Python even if they > don't stick to Django. And that in turn requires a balance between > making things as simple as possible, and making sure we're teaching > reusable skills; I'd like to think that if someone tries Django and > doesn't like it, but does like Python, they'll come out of the install > and tutorial with enough knowledge to be able to go download and > install other Python-based software. > > One way to accomplish that is to be a bit more up-front about how to > install packaged Python software; that way, when a new user does > decide to try something else, they don't suddenly hit a wall of "wow > this is so much harder" -- instead it's "oh, this works the same way". > And in general I think it's not too much of a burden on users, > provided we keep the install docs well-written and up-to-date. > > (the other side of the balancing act, of course, is that we don't go > into stuff like pip, virtual environments, etc. which are also > incredibly useful to learn, but add even more up-front complexity to > the install process; I would love to have good documentation on how to > get started with that -- either Django-specific or in general -- to > point people to, but right now I think it'd be a bit too much for the > first-timers) > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-developers/-/r5axU9rDDSMJ. To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en.
