Cal Henderson's DjangoCon 2008 keynote, "Why I Hate Django", is a funny critique of Django from a Flickr architect. It touches on scaling topics such as database replication.
Why Hacker News points people here: Recommended as a brilliant, hilarious talk, though not the most educational.
Brilliant, funny critique of Django from a Flickr architect.
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Maybe I'm delusional, but even as someone who has worked pretty extensively (4 months of full stack Django development) with Django, posts like these things make me want to stay away from Django. I read this post, and I see bandaids. I see bloat, and I see warts. I don't want to build on a codebase that needs 5 extensions out of the box to be sane. Granted, I know this is not the real story with Django. It is a rather lovely, if rather rigid and stubborn framework (at least it was when I was writing with in circa 1.3). And it is powerful. But, and this is my point, it seems to me that there is almost no reason I would use Django over something like flask for anything but the most basic of apps. Any time you need to do "serious" work — beyond cookie-cutter stuff — you're going to need to seriously extend Django (or any other web framework for that matter, in my experience/humble opinion). And then it gets ugly, and you're better off building from the ground up on a minimal codebase than trying to contort an existing one to do what you need it to. Actually, most of my thoughts have been summed up 5 years ago by one of Flikr's lead architects (iirc) at DjangoCon '08 in a brilliant (and hilarious) talk: this video
RecommendsjodrellblankMay 2009
“He seems to know his stuff.”
Cal Henderson's DjangoCon 2008 keynote.
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Cal Henderson gave one of the DjangoCon 2008 keynote talks, and it's very good: this video He seems to know his stuff. Good luck to them.
RecommendsforsakenJan 2010
“The ones from 08 were amazing”
Among the favorite DjangoCon 2008 talks.
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Excited about these! The ones from 08 were amazing, if you have just gotten into django, I would recommend going back and listening to some of them. Favorites are anything by Malcolm, including Inside the ORM: link James' talk on Reusable apps: link Cal's Why I hate Django: this video Technical Design Panel: link
RecommendstsallyFeb 2010
“A great example of this type of presentation done well”
Example of a well-done presentation style.
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Lawrence Lessig does presentations like this [1]; I've always been a fan. A great example of this type of presentation done well is Cal Handerson's keynote at Djangocon in 2008 [2], "Why I Hate Django". Previous discussion on this presentation here [3]. [1] link [2] this video [3] link
RecommendssphNov 2010
“Cal Henderson noted that Flickr uses multiple masters replicating to slave servers”
Flickr's multi-master replication setup, discussed in keynote.
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This is a wonderful in-depth article and the PostgreSQL team deserves a lot of kudos for the work they put into this. I'm looking forward to using it. The thing I find interesting that MySQL offers is multi-master and circular replication. Cal Henderson noted that Flickr uses multiple masters replicating to slave servers in their setup during DjangoCon 2008 (a great presentation if you haven't seen it: this video ). Granted, multi-master setups aren't needed for most sites and PostgreSQL's new WAL replication and the fact that it makes sure that the WAL is written on the slave before the transaction is committed on the master means that data integrity should be top notch. It's exciting to see PostgreSQL's development progressing so well.
RecommendsdavurOct 2016
“Not that it is the most educational talk”
Funny talk, though not the most educational.
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Cal Henderson "Why I Hate Django" DjangoCon 2008 Keynote - this video . Not that it is the most educational talk, but it's really funny (edit: added youtube link).
Cites itwensingMar 2009
Cal Henderson's rant on Django scalability.
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Have you listened to Cal Henderson's friendly rant against Django from a scalability perspective? this video For example, did you modify the source to support multiple databases for read/write? Or is that not an issue and it's OK that it's coming later in the framework's roadmap?
Cites itnopalDec 2010
“He jokingly said Django needed a mascot”
Origin of the Django mascot joke.
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It comes from Cal Henderson's DjangoCon 2008 keynote: this video He jokingly said Django needed a mascot and that he could take a framework seriously if it had a mascot with magical powers.
Cites itits_so_onJun 2012
Why I Hate Django talk by Cal Henderson.
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Sorry if this is a stupid question, but are these just slides without any voice or commentary? Also, you might be interested in this video, this video "Why I hate Django" by Cal Henderson then of Flicker. 2008 though - I'd love to know about an update about the things addressed.
Cites iterreMar 2013
Personal anecdote tied to the keynote.
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My Malcolm anecdote: In 2008 the Python users group in São Paulo watched Djangocon, streamed live to the local Google Office. I took and tweeted a few pictures of the screen, including this one of Malcolm: link . I loved it, he just seemed like the quintessential geek :) Later that day (IIRC), Cal Henderson gave his "Why I Hate Django" keynote, and at some point my picture showed up in a slide: this video "Don't make Malcolm cry" :)
Cites itwhateverboatAug 2026
Talk the commenter recalls whenever Django is praised.
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I really like django, but since being involved in it from early days, whenever someone now praises Django, I am reminded of this talk: this video DjangoCon 2008 Keynote: Cal Henderson
