Talk Python To Me #518: Celebrating Django's 20th Birthday With Its Creators
Aug 29, 2025
Simon Willison and Adrian Holovaty, co-creators of Django, along with Jeff Triplett from the Django Software Foundation, reflect on the framework's evolution over 20 years. They delve into Django's origins in journalism, its powerful community culture, and the impact of open source. The trio discusses modern enhancements like async features and API development, all while keeping Django's inclusive spirit. They also explore its role in AI, the significance of initiatives like Django Girls, and future challenges for web development. A compelling look at Django’s legacy and what lies ahead!
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Born In A Newspaper Basement
- Adrian and Simon built Django at the Lawrence Journal-World to ship newsroom apps quickly and switched from PHP to Python.
- They created a small request/response abstraction to avoid lock-in to mod_python which later became the kernel of Django.
PyCon Pitch Sparked Open Source
- Adrian demoed their unnamed framework at PyCon and attendees urged them to open source it despite many Python web frameworks existing.
- The timing near the Ruby on Rails buzz helped Django gain attention and momentum.
Ellington: A Newspaper Product Effort
- The team tried to commercialize parts of their system as Ellington and sold it to newspapers, but the shrinking local-news market hurt the business.
- Jeff remembers hundreds of papers running Ellington and hopes its code will be open-sourced someday.
