About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. In the '90s I did graphic design for newspapers and magazines. Then I wrote technology commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon.com, Chicago Tribune, and lots of little places you've never heard of. Feel free to email me.

Book

I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.

Colophon

Built using Django, served by Apache and mod_wsgi. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

Akismet, del.icio.us, Django, dpaste.com, Emacs, FreeBSD, Freenode, jQuery, LaunchBar, MacPorts, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, SQLite, Subversion, TextMate, Trac, Ubuntu Linux, wmii

Spam Report

At least 71105 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

The Django Book

Congratulations to Adrian and Jacob on the launch of their GFDL-licensed book on Django. From the Django blog:

This is a pre-release, which means we're actively looking for comments, typo fixes, corrections and other suggestions from readers like you, all around the world. We'll try to incorporate your suggestions into the final product, which will be published by Apress early next year. Amazon.com is accepting preorders for the print edition, and the number of preorders so far has been astounding.

Only two chapters so far, but there are dates listed for most of the remaining ones. There's a commenting system for detailed feedback, and comments are rolling in at a good clip.

I'm intrigued that the commenting system uses the Yahoo User Interface Library for its widgetry. At some point there seemed to be consensus that Django would officially use Dojo for Javascriptification, but this makes me wonder. (Not that I'm particularly attached to Dojo -- YUI is swell.)

http://www.djangobook.com/

Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
django + web development + writing
1 comment

Some related posts: Django Unicodification • Django.June • dpaste.com update • Notes on my new Django setup • Handling legacy URLs with Django • Root, sweet root • Django as superego • Moving the blog to Django • A minimal wiki in Django • Rails/Django lovefest in Chicago

• Comment from João Marcus , later that day

I abandoned Dojo after I realized that they don't really care about the docs. The Django-Dojo integration never actually happened, and I don't think that it will ever happen. At least YUI has docs.