September 15, 2008

Django in the Enterprise

Long-​time read­ers know of my dis­like for the word enter­prise, but the truth is that many of us work for just such a beast.

Luck­ily I get to use Django at my job and I thought I’d share what little I know of how to get Django into a big company.

  1. Start small — If your pitch starts with “Let’s scrap (big hairy enter­prise system that’s already installed) and use Django… tomorrow!” it’s prob­a­bly not going to suc­ceed, at first.

    Pick an exist­ing appli­ca­tion in your com­pany that folks, espe­cially your boss, don’t care for. Even better, use Django to scratch a new itch that you or your co-​workers have.

    In my expe­ri­ence it’s often best to start with a project that wouldn’t have to inter­act with any legacy sys­tems. That way you can avoid the “OMG your toy appli­ca­tion, lan­guage and frame­work will bring our crit­i­cal sys­tems to their knees! I banish you and this ‘D.J. Angelo’ to the phan­tom zone” reaction.

    Your goal is to build an appli­ca­tion that’ll make folks happy, or make folks money, or save folks time, or save folks money and at the same time pose a rel­a­tively low risk to the exist­ing business.

  2. Start locally — If your pitch starts with “I need cap­i­tal for two Web servers, a hard­ware load bal­ancer, and some master-​master data­base boxes” it’s prob­a­bly not going to suc­ceed, at first.

    Start work­ing on an appli­ca­tion on your office or home com­puter. Deploy to a nice host like Web­Fac­tion.

    Be sure to put some pass­word pro­tec­tion on the appli­ca­tion, where-​ever you deploy it to. Don’t put any com­pany data in your appli­ca­tion to start with, either.

    You don’t want to leave the taste of “doesn’t care about security” in your boss’ mouth. It doesn’t pair well with “freaking awe­some frame­work I’d like to start using.”

  3. Start in your own time — If you’re not for­tu­nate to work in a group that has 20 per­cent time then you prob­a­bly want to work on this project in your own time.

  4. Start humbly — Django is awe­some. Django does have magic powers. I know that. You know that.

    How­ever, acting like Django will rev­o­lu­tion­ize the enter­prise, make it flipped, turned upside down will prob­a­bly not go over well.

    Plus, smug­ness is the domain another Web frame­work.

    That said, don’t be too con­ser­v­a­tive in your enthu­si­asm for Django. A little zeal can go a long way, and show your boss that this is some­thing you really care about.

  5. Start now — What are you wait­ing for?

    Change is wrought by those who fight for it… get to it!

Filed under: Django,Python

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Comments

Michael Cumming – September 15, 2008 #

Excel­lent advice. I am in exactly that sit­u­a­tion at work. I think I’ll pro­ceed just as you advise.

Chris – September 15, 2008 #

Michael,

Glad my post (wordy as it is) is help­ing folks out!

I think the key is to start small and grow virally… in other words build some­thing so awe­some your boss can’t say no to it!