Challenge goal: The idea of the challenge is to implement a very simplified version of Reddit, meaning you will have Users, Topics, Posts and Comments. with this you're expected to test your knowledge on the basic concepts involved in a Django backend application, and to also learn even more. Always!
Target level: This is an entry level course, no prior knowledge of programming is needed.
Final accomplishment: By the end of this challenge, you’ll be able to understand the basics of Django and how to create your own RESTful API with basic CRUD functionalities.
- Separate your project into 4 Django apps, one for each entity:
- User
- Topic
- Post
- Comment
- Have all the required fields for each entity as described on this README
- Use the URL structure described on this README with Nested URL Routers
As mentioned in the description, this challenge will have four entities (each one should be a separate app). Here are brief descriptions of what they are and what are the expected properties of each (keep in mind that you can improve them as you wish!):
- User: can be used plain from what is offered by Django;
- Topic: the equivalent of a sub-reddit. The suggest fields are:
- Name
- Title
- Author
- Description
- URLName - the name we want to use to reach it through the browser (check SlugField)
- Created_at
- Updated_at
- Post: the equivalent of a Reddit thread, a post belongs to a specific topic and is created by an user. The suggested fields are: _ Title _ Content _ Created_at _ Updated_at * Topic
- Comment: the equivalent of a comment, a comment belongs to a specific post (which belongs to a specific topic) and is created by an user. The suggested fields are: _ Title _ Content _ Created_at _ Updated_at * Post
We want to have a behavior similar to Reddit (not necessarily equal), so ideally we'd like a structure like this:
- /topics/ - lists all available topics
- /topics/{urlname}/ - details (as well as some posts) from a specific topic (identified by urlname)
- /topics/{urlname}/posts/ - lists all posts from a specific topic
- /topics/{urlname}/posts/{post_id}/ - lists details and some comments from a post
- /topics/{urlname}/posts/{post_id}/comments/ - lists all comments from a post
- /topics/{urlname}/posts/{post_id}/comments/{comment_id}/ - lists details from a comment
- Create the virtual environment and activate it
virtualenv -p python3 venv
source venv/bin/activate- Install the requirements
pip install -r requirements.txt - Start the dockers
docker-compose upwith the database and the localstack - Run the server with
python manage.py runserver 8000
You need a .envfile with your environment variables, here's an example file:
LOAD_ENVS_FROM_FILE='True'
ENVIRONMENT='development'
SECRET_KEY='#*=backend-challenge=*#'
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL='Challenge <[email protected]>'
DATABASE_URL='postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/backend-challenge-001'
SENTRY_DSN='sentry_key'
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME='django-be'Here are some useful stuff to keep in mind while completing this challenge:
- Try to keep your code DRY, so the creation of abstract helper models is more than welcome to avoid repetition of fields in your models;
- Remember that only the author of a topic, post or comment should be able to modify or delete it! If you have any doubts, check the Authentication and Permissions part on the Django REST tutorial
- For better structuring and visualization, you may use Nested Serializers to customize your responses beyond the primary keys
- Nested Routers documentation
- lookup field section on the Routers documentation