108 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
108 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Hello, World!
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layout: post
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---
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This past summer, I decided that the basic HTML site that I had at hallada.net
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wasn't going to cut it anymore. I needed a blog.
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At that point, I had already come a long way with [Python](http://python.org/)
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and was pretty familiar with it and I was beginning to get familiar with
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[Django](https://www.djangoproject.com/), a web framework for Python. Django
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was what I was working with at [Valti](https://www.valti.com), and I was really
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liking making websites with it. It took what made Python awesome and applied
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that to web development.
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I started from a blank Django project and built it up from there. Django's
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Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) can be boiled down to this: python classes
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(called models) in a Django-specific module named `models.py` represent a table
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in a database, where the attributes of the classes are columns in the table and
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instances of the classes are rows. This was something that was very intuitive
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for me, since I came from a Python and object-oriented programming background.
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The first step was to create Entry models which would hold text, title, and
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other related data pertaining to a blog post. I then created a view that would
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display these Entry objects in some order. A "view" in Django is just a Python
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function that accepts an HTTP request as a parameter and returns an HTTP
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response that the server will then hand off to the clients browser.
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From there, the project took off. It became the project where I would take all
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of the refined knowledge I was gaining at Valti about Django, and apply it in a
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very controlled and perfected environment.
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I built other features such as Project models that hold data about a specific
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project I have done, Tag models to hold a word that would categorize Entries
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and Projects, an archive view that would chronologically list all of the
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entries I've ever posted, and many other small things I could never list out in
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one blog post.
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Django itself provided many useful features for my blog. After all, it was
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built for this type of use.
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[Comments](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/comments) were a
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big feature out of the Django contrib package that I used. However, I heavily
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modified the way comments work on my blog to make it more streamlined. For
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example, I used [jQuery](http://jquery.com/) and
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[Ajax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)) to grab another
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commenter's post in pre-rendered markdown syntax and inserted it into the
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comment text box when you click reply on someone's comment.
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I pulled in a few third-party packages, like
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[South](http://south.aeracode.org/) and
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[django-markdown-deux](https://github.com/trentm/django-markdown-deux) as well
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to make my life easier, but I tried to constrain them to things that would more
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aid me than do all the work on the blog for me. Because the fun in creating a
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blog in Django instead of using some pre-manufactured
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[Wordpress](http://wordpress.org/) template is that I get to design, implement,
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and maintain the site all on my own. This allows me to really truly understand
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what is going on under the hood.
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Surprisingly, the most difficult part of the whole project was the design of
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the site. It was actually what stalled me from completing the blog until months
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after I had started creating it. I absolutely despise CSS.
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Luckily, I found [Bootstrap](http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/). It's
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sensible grid-system actually made sense to me. And I was able to make a decent
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looking layout very quickly using it. But of course, I still stalled forever in
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trying to perfect the design to get it *just* right. A couple weeks ago I
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finally decided enough was enough and I was going with the current layout so I
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could start blogging.
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My old site was hosted on a friend's server, but this time I decided that I
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would host it on my own server so I could get a better understanding of the
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inner workings of web servers. I ended up hosting it on my [personal virtual
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machine](http://alpaca.mit.edu) provided by [MIT's SIPB](http://sipb.mit.edu/)
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[XVM project](http://xvm.mit.edu/). I had previously hosted many Django
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websites through the cloud server provider [Heroku](http://www.heroku.com/),
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which worked fantastically. But, I had never tried to host on my own server.
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I decided on using [Apache](http://www.apache.org/) to host my website since it
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was the most common throughout the web and I would be bound to encounter it
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again in web development anyways. I tested the whole configuration on the
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desktop computer in my dorm room before I deployed it to Alpaca (my MIT virtual
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machine). There was much frustration before I got the VirtualHost configuration
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in Apache set up correctly to allow access to the static files for my blog, but
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it all could be chalked up to me just being generally unfamiliar with Apache.
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So that is the majority of the work that went into making this blog a reality.
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Again, this is something I've created that I haven't had the chance to test
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extensively on a large scale, so there may be bugs here and there that you
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might notice. Do me a big favor and report them to me so I can make sure my
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blog is running as smoothly as possible.
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Also, I welcome constructive criticism, so comment if you have any thoughts or
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suggestions about my writing or the site in general. Also, I just want people
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using the commenting feature so I can make sure it's really working :P
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I hope you all enjoyed the first post ever on my blog.
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EDIT: View the code for this project at
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[GitHub](https://github.com/thallada/personalsite).
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EDIT: I have since moved the site from SIPB's XVM service to SIPB's (hopefully
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more reliable) [scripts service](http://scripts.mit.edu). <a
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href="http://scripts.mit.edu/"><img alt="powered by scripts.mit.edu"
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src="http://scripts.mit.edu/media/powered_by.gif" /></a>
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EDIT: This post is now referring to an old version of my website. I have since
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re-wrote my website and moved away from Django.
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