What is the best way to learn Django 1.5? [closed]

Question

What is the best way to learn Django 1.5 thouroughly? I have been a .NET developer and have a really good understanding of OOP, HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. I also have an entry-level knowledge of Python. I am completely new to MVC (or MVT, in this case).

I have a need to build apps with Django that provide users with features such as finding each other based on geographical distance, upload pictures and edit them online, natural language search, etc... (just to highlight that I need to know more than how to build a poll app or a simple blog).

My understanding is that the entry point to learn Django is by completing the tutorial at the Django project site. Then, what? What path would you recommend? I have seen that lots of learning resources on the web target versions lower than 1.5 and I couldn't really find books on 1.5. When reading reviews on learning material on 1.4, I often see they are outdated and not really applying to 1.5.

Also, I briefly looked at what it takes to deploy a Django app. Virtualenv, git, pip, etc... are all things unknown to me and it looks a bit scary for a guy used to deploy apps by uploading the compiled binaries through FTP.

Help in defining a clear path to learn how to bend Django to my will would be invaluable!

Answer 1

1. The official Django tutorial (as you are aware)
2. 2 Scoops of Django e-book or paperback (https://django.2scoops.org/). There are lots of useful information in it, even about virtualenv, custom settings etc.

If you don't want to spend the few bucks for the excellent book, have a look at this github repository: https://github.com/jacobian/djangobook.com which is an ongoing project.