Why Showcase These Websites?
An Open Letter From Ross Poulton
There's a whole bunch of talent out there in the web development community, and we're lucky enough to have a big portion of that talent in the Django community.
Over a year ago I started DjangoSites, a listing of websites powered by Django. The site has such a broad range of websites listed and the cross-segmentation of sites is amazing. There are sites in English, Chinese, and Brazillian. There are personal websites, there are massive commercial websites, and there are open-source projects. There are stunningly beautiful websites, and there are simple geeky blogs that place content and functionality over visual presence.
Something that I've noticed is that there is a rather large split between the serious websites and the not so serious. There are websites where development teams have spent many months perfecting every last detail, and there are simple websites built in an afternoon with a very narrow but specific purpose.
Whilst DjangoSites will remain an excellent resource for people wanting to see the wide gamut of possibilities when beginning a project with Django, I wanted a way to really acknowledge the cream of the crop by hand-picking a single website each week and interviewing the people behind it to find out why it is the way it is.
As a result I've put together the Django Site of the Week. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, and it's a result of both fantastic creations by the Django community and the very useful feedback I've received from website creators when I've asked for more details on their projects to list them here.
I hope you enjoy reading the stories behind some of what I believe are some of the most interesting Django-powered websites. Thank you to the contributors and to those who have made suggestions.
— Ross Poulton, September 2008
