Best products from r/djangolearning

If the online tuturials don't suit your fancy, get the book Python Crash Course and work through Part III which is building a Django project from the ground up. That's what I did, and that got me able to build my own project. Still had a long way to go, but it was very helpful, as it brings you from zero to deployment at heroku, with bootstrap front-end, in three chapters. It uses 1.11 which is the most recent LTS version, but I use 2.0 now which is even easier you don't have to mess around with regex. :) I would not recommend the Test Driven Development book, as it is more of a book on testing than on Django. Some people might recommend "two scoops of django" but that is not a beginner book so don't even think about that yet.

Other options

• The hello web app book is good, and very basic:
  https://www.amazon.com/Hello-Web-App-Tracy-Osborn/dp/0986365912/
  
  
• I find the MDN material really good too:
  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Server-side
  
  
• Also, check out this web site which is a book:
  https://djangoforbeginners.com/
  I cannot vouch for it as I haven't read it, but I just read over parts of it and it seems very good, I am curious what others think. Though it recommends visual studio code instead of Atom (or pretty much anything else) as a text editor, which I found strange as the best environment to develop Django stuff is Linux! :)
  
  
• Excellent guide at simple is better than complex, which I have not worked through personally but looks very good:
  https://simpleisbetterthancomplex.com/series/2017/09/04/a-complete-beginners-guide-to-django-part-1.html
  
  

  Be patient
  

  Please let us know what you end up doing, I'm curious! Note that Django is not easy by any means, so cut yourself some slack. I am a scientific programmer by trade, and learning Django was a pain in the you-know-what for me, it took me many hours to learn the basics of the framework. There is no easy way to learn Django: you should expect to put in a good 40+ hours to get the basics down (e.g., model/view/template and a minimal web site). There is absolutely no way around that. This is assuming you are already decent at Python. If it takes you less, then fine you are ahead of the game. If it takes you a little more, then that's ok too because Django isn't trivial: you may need to study side stuff like databases, or virtual environments, or git/github. This is fine, and all these things will be incredibly useful to you in the long run.
  
  Django is a top heavy, opinionated framework that once you have learned it, is amazing and does a lot of stuff with very little effort....(I am still amazed that in my main project I literally have written zero lines of database queries for instance ;)). Just be patient with yourself because it really is a great framework.
  
  

  Once you have done one, then get started on yours
  

  But once you work through just one of these basic introductions, you will still have a lot to learn, but you will be ready, you will know the basics, you will have travelled up the basic Django learning curve.
  
  The thing to do at that point is start building the app you want. There is no substitute for that, once you have the basics down (by basics I mean elementary muscle memory of how to start a project, add new apps, create models, views and templates, and deploy remotely). Once you have that basic stuff down, then start building your own new project, and asking questions.
  
  Whatever you do, just do one of these basic introductions, don't keep doing tutorials: once you have finished one of the tutorials, then don't fall into the trap of being a perpetual tutorial taker: start building your project!!!

I can think of a couple good Django books--Two Scoops of Django and Django Design Patterns and Best Practices, however they don't necessarily cover the "basics." I haven't found anything better than the docs for covering the basics. However, they do both cover common problems that come up when developing Django projects, so once you move past the basics I would definitely recommend reading both books.