Daniel Correa is the author of Django 4 for the Impatient we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
Daniel : Software engineering, frameworks, web development and software architectures
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Daniel : I worked in this book with Greg Lim, which is a self-publishing book author. He was contacted by Packt to publish this book under their editorial.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Daniel: I have worked with Django during the last 3 years. I used it in my research and with some students. I have knowledge in many frameworks such as Laravel, Nest.js, Spring, Express and Django. Greg developed the first version of the book, and I helped him to improve it.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Daniel : We have some technical problems or concerns about how to design the code to be clean. But, we fixed reading the official documentations or discussing about it.
Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Daniel: Web applications are everywhere. Python is one the most popular languages, and Django is the most popular web application framework based on Python. I think they will be used and evolved for the next decades.
Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Daniel: We use a practical approach with short explanations and direct to the point. That’s the biggest difference between this book and others. With this book, you start developing Django application in minutes. Other book make eternal discussions about some features and elements and doesn’t explain in detail the code.
Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away with from the book?
Daniel: This is a book for Django beginners. We want readers to be able to develop a big range of different Django web applications. They will obtain basic knowledge about the fundamental elements of Django.
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Daniel: Read a lot, learn a lot. Don’t be stuck with a specific technology just because is trending or because of your preferences. Learn to use different technologies. This gives you a great perspective about how other solve problems, and the different architectures and approaches. Besides, I recommend to critically analyze everything you read and hear. All we make mistakes, and some solutions can fit better a specific problem but maybe not your problem.
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Daniel: I don’t have a blog, but I post many useful things about clean code, web development and books on my Twitter account https://twitter.com/danielgarax
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Daniel: I suggest to check at the tech official website, buy some books at Packt site, or follow Greg and I at Twitter (@greglim81 @danielgarax)
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Daniel: Packt team has been amazing. The detail, the suggestions, the support over this journey has been incredible. I recommend Packt 100%.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Twitter and digital libraries such as Amazon or Packt. I have many friends and students that recommend me new tech and I research about it.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Daniel: It can vary. Our books are very practical. So, sometimes I start developing the web application which will be used as a base to explain the concepts and theory that the book teaches. Then, I start to develop the text content. Sometimes I develop a portion of the code, and then I write the text for that portion of the code. Somedays I just research about how to implement or write a specific book chapter. So, it varies.
Q. What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Consistency and discipline. There’s no a silver bullet, but if you organize your own calendar and spend a specific timeframe coding or writing once a day, or twice a day, then you progress and the book completion becomes real.
Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, please share.
Daniel: https://twitter.com/danielgarax
You can find Daniel’s book on Amazon by following this link: https://packt.link/a36gh
