Django Best Practices
5 min read Quiz at the end
Best practices: custom User model, N+1 prevention, atomic transactions, Debug Toolbar.
Django Best Practices
- Use a custom User model from the start — changing later is painful
- Use
select_related() and prefetch_related() to prevent N+1 - Never use
objects.all() in production without filtering/limiting - Keep views thin — put business logic in model methods or service layers
- Use DRF for APIs — never return raw QuerySets as JSON
- Store secrets in environment variables — use python-decouple
- Write tests in TestCase classes — use fixtures or factories (factory_boy)
- Use Django Debug Toolbar in development
- Use
django.db.transaction.atomic() for multi-step DB operations - Always run
collectstatic before deployment
Topic Quiz · 2 questions
Test your understanding before moving on
1. What is the N+1 problem in Django?
💡 N+1: for each post in posts: post.author causes N extra queries.
2. Why use a custom User model from the start?
💡 Django recommends AUTH_USER_MODEL from day one.