Summary
Mobile grows bigger each year, but we love the web, and Django. Where does our knowledge and experience fit in this new ecosystem? What kind of a role can Django play on fast-growing platforms like iOS and Android?
Description
Intro
- Django's version of MVC vs. iOS/Android version of MVC
- How the platforms differ from Django
- What is similar to Django
API
- Easiest way for Django to be used in conjunction with mobile today
- Big fat requests with lots of data preferable to many smaller requests
- Authentication best practices for mobile backend APIs
PhoneGap
- Can actually use Django to build your mobile app today
- JavaScript tricks to get around things like tap delay
- How much Django is really used vs. how much JavaScript
- Offline caching
- Performance issues with this approach
Future
- Quick look at RubyMotion
- Turns out it's possible to cross-compile Python for iOS
- Android has Py4A (including interpreter embedding)
- What can be done with this? Mobile Django.
Conclusion
- They are different worlds, need to be careful to respect both
- Even today Django proves useful as an API layer
- Django web apps in native wrapper can be a solution, albeit with its issues
- As hardware gets better, we may see something like an embedded Django