Today I’m launching the 4.2 updates to my Django for Beginners book. The highlights are two brand-new chapters on deployment, many more diagrams, extra emphasis on explaining “why,” not just “how” things work in Django, and switching from Heroku to Fly.io for deployment.

I first published this book in 2018 and have updated it continuously for editions 1.11, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 4.0, and now 4.2. The 4.2 update is a completely new book in many respects, given that I am constantly learning, teaching, and using Django.

Django For Beginners 4.2

What’s New for 4.2

In bulleted format, here is what’s new in the 4.2 update:

  • Django 4.2 and Python 3.11 throughout
  • Updated all third-party packages, most notably Psycopg, which is now supported in Django 4.2
  • Two new chapters with expanded deployment for the Message Board and Blog apps
  • Use Fly.io for deployment instead of Heroku
  • New illustrations of Django under the hood, explaining in detail how the HTTP request/response cycle travels into and out of our Django projects
  • Expanded sections on databases, Django’s ORM, primary keys, and foreign keys
  • Switch app names to the shorter posts variation instead of the longer posts.apps.PostsConfig option. See the Django Forum discussion for more context
  • Many, many other small improvements throughout

The Future

I’m currently finishing up 4.2 updates for my other two books: Django for Professionals and Django for APIs. After that, I plan to focus on LearnDjango.com so that there is a web-only option for people who want to learn Django. I’m biased toward physical books, but more and more people want the option to find great content online and then continue consuming it there. It also makes it easier for readers to translate if English is not their native language.