Simplify Django Setup with a Single Command

Using Django Getting Started
1

Django makes web development efficient, but its initial setup process involves running two commands:

django-admin startproject project_name  
cd project_name 
python manage.py startapp myapp

While simple, this two-step process could be streamlined into a single command. Imagine running:
django-admin startprojectwithapp myproject myapp
This unified command would:

  1. Create the project structure.
  2. Automatically generate the first app.
    The result? A ready-to-code project with less hassle:
project_name/  
    manage.py  
    myproject/  
        settings.py  
        urls.py  
        ...  
    myapp/  
        models.py  
        views.py  
        ...

I believe combining django-admin startproject and python manage.py startapp into a single command would simplify the Django setup process and make development more efficient. I got it wrong when I started with django. I want to know what you guys think

2

Welcome @Brighht !

It is common for beginners to think that these two operations are joined or operate in parallel, but that’s not universally true.

You can run a Django installation without any user-written apps - where all apps being used are installed as packages. You’ll be running startproject only and never running startapp.

You may also be in a situation where you’re needing to create multiple apps for your project, and so want to run startapp multiple times without running startproject.

As a result of the effects of both of these situations, I believe it would be more confusing to add a third command to the mix.

2 Likes
3

Thank you, Ken! Your explanation really helped me understand it better. I’m still getting used to Django, but this makes things much clearer

4

There’s an effort going on, with two goals:

  1. Make startproject be enough to start with an app
  2. Make a new command that will make it easier to choose the kind of project

The work is done in a pull request on the DEPs repository. For readers who are not familiar with them – DEPs, or Django Enhancement Proposals, are specifications for major things in Django – major changes, basic processes etc.

The suggestion is a work in progress (that’s why it’s still a pull request), but it’s meant to address @Brighht’s initial complaint/suggestion – to make it more straightforward to start with the common case for beginners, while still keeping tabs on the somewhat-less-common cases @KenWhitesell noted.

2 Likes
5

Thank you. I’ll check it out