Django is a Python-based and open-source web framework that is designed to assist developers to build backend web applications quickly with less code. A major update in Django is its 3.0 version which comes with built-in async functionality, support for Python 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 as well as the third-party library support for the earlier versions of Django. Django is rated as one of the most-loved frameworks among the developers as per the stock overflow’s annual developer survey.

Why Django is our favorite?

  • It is a cross-platform framework suitable for any web application project.
  • It helps the developers to bypass the security issues like clickjacking, SQL injection, and others.
  • This framework can be used effortlessly since it uses the Python language.
  • Django is easy to migrate and runs on any application as it offers ORM (object-relational mapper)

Why should you upgrade an existing project to the latest version of Django?

Sometimes upgrading can be a complex process but upgrading to the latest version of Django has the following benefits –

  • New features and enhancements
  • Fixed all the existing bugs
  • Earlier versions of Django will eventually stop receiving security support and updates
  • Early access to newer releases and upgrades

What Django 3.0 offers to Python developers?

Django 3.0

Django 3.0 is the latest version of the Python framework which offers quick creation of database-backed web services and websites. It also supports Python async, the latest and most powerful feature of Python to boost the speed of network and website services. Let’s take a look at all the new features that come along with Django 3.0 –

Support for Maria DB – MariaDB is made by the original developers of MySQL and is one of the most popular database servers. Django 3.0 supports MariaDB 10.2 and higher versions. It has replaced MySQL with enhancements and turns raw data into structured information for various applications ranging from banking to websites.

Asynchronous Django – This was one of the most awaited features in Django and now Django 3.0 is completely async-capable. This feature will be introduced in Django by offering support for ASGI (Asynchronous Server Gateway) which is an extension to the WSGI support. Python async grants networking applications and other programs to run efficiently and smoothly. Now, Django 3.0 is working with Python 3.6 and later versions which will simplify the work for developers with async’s programming features. It provides a standard interface between async-capable Python, frameworks, web servers, and applications.  

Custom Enumerations – TextChoices, IntegerChoices, and Choices are custom enumeration types that are now available as a way to define Field.choices. For text and integer fields, TextChoices and IntegerChoices are provided respectively. The Choices class permits defining a compatible enumeration for other concrete data types. The custom enumeration types support labels that are human-readable and can be accessed and translated by any property on the enumeration or by its members.  

Simplified Expressions – In Django 3.0, the expressions can be used directly in QuerySet filters that output the BooleanField, without first annotating and then filtering against the annotation. In the earlier versions of Django, these expressions first had to be annotated and then filtered against the annotation.  

PostgreSQL 9.5 and Higher – Django 3.0 now supports PostgreSQL 9.5 and higher versions. It adds a new ExclusionConstraint class which adds exclusion constraints on PostgreSQL. By using the Meta.Constraints option, the constraints are added to models.  

A Few Minor Changes

  • The smart_text() and force_text() aliases of smart_str() and force_str() are deprecated.
  • Private Python 2 compatibility APIs are removed, Python 3 no longer uses these APIs. Support for sqlparse < 0.2.2 and pywatchman < 1.2.0 are also removed.
  • No more support for PostgreSQL 9.4, Oracle 12.4, SpatiaLite 4.1 and 4.2, PostGIS 2.1, GDAL 1.11, and GEOS 3.4.
  • is_safe_url() is renamed to url_has_allowed_host_and_scheme().
  • utils.text.unescape_entities() is deprecated and use in html.unescape() instead.
  • Deprecated django.utils.translation.ugettext(), ugettext_lazy(), ugettext_noop(), ungettext(), and ungettext_lazy().

Wrapping Up

Django is going under an evolution process while adding the features that have the scope of development in the future and removing outdated ones. With its latest update, Django continues to stay significant in the world. If you are still stuck on Python 2, Django 3.0 gives you a reason to enhance your app development by switching to python 3 as this release of Django only supports Python 3.6 and onwards. If your project is working in MariaDB, upgrade your version of Django and take advantage of the official support. If your project is completely async or has some async functionalities, you can use Django 3.0 without substantial complications.

Want to make the most of the new features of Django 3.0? Get in touch with our Python developers and start discussing your project today!