Tag Archives: Django

Satchmo, Django and all that jazz

One reason The Nerdery is home to a growing number of user groups is that hosting lets our ever-curious programmers stay after school to learn from other top minds in the tech community. For example, if we felt we needed a better grip on the Internet, we’d invite its inventor in for a PowerPoint chat – but we kind of get it.

So, at last Thursday’s monthly meeting of Minnesota Python developers, The Nerdery welcomed Satchmo founder and lead developer Chris Moffitt to discuss his creation. The seeds of Satchmo were planted three years ago when Moffitt emailed his Django user group to find others interested in helping him create what would become his Django shopping cart. Now billed as “the webshop for perfectionists with deadlines,” Satchmo is an alternative to numerous PHP-based open source ecommerce solutions. Satchmo’s Django-based framework lets Python and Django developers create highly customized online shops.

Here are several ecommerce sites using Satchmo and the slides from Chris Moffitt’s presentation:

The Nerdery’s Robert Speer came away from Moffitt’s presentation with this list of things he likes about Satchmo:

• It’s just a shopping cart, and does not try to be everything to everybody
• Plays nice with and uses other Django plugins (blogs, CMS’s, image manipulation, authentication…)
• Multi-tenancy; one shopping cart can service many sites
• Internationalization
• Tax/vat support
• Multiple shipping options
• Multiple payment gateways shipped with app
• Default templates, written to be easily extended
• Uses jQuery
• Built for easy customization

Also likable: Minnesota’s Python user group, PyMNtos, meets on the second Thursday of each month at The Nerdery. As the original Satchmo himself once said: “What a wonderful world.”

Profiles in Nerdery: Matt Westerburg and the age-old question, Why Python?

• Astrological Sign: I’m with Kai on this one!
• Time at the Nerdery: I’ve been here since May of last year.
• Area of expertise: Python, Django, C/C++, Assembly
• When people ask you what you do, how do you respond: I’m a programmer that gets to utilize various languages and frameworks to accomplish a client’s needs.
• Favorite kinds of projects to work on: My favorite projects are offline projects. I enjoy web development, but my passion lies in systems programming, language design, embedded systems, and operating system design.
• What one thing about The Nerdery surprises people the most when you tell them about it: Definitely the dogs. People generally find it very cool that it is such a relaxed environment.
• Seven dream Jeopardy Categories: 1. Why Python!; 2.Design Patterns; 3. The Pitfalls of Object Oriented Programming; 4. History of Programming Languages; 5. History of Mathematics; 6. Thai Food; 7. MegaMan Bosses
• Favorite Fictional Nerd: The Time Traveller from H.G. Wells The Time Machine. He remains so nonchalant about the whole time travel thing.
• According to the Wikipedia entry on Nerd, some nerds show a pronounced interest in subjects which others tend to find dull or complex and difficult to comprehend, or overly mature for their age, especially topics related to science, disambiguation, mathematics and technology. Do you know what disambiguation is: I do, however I am far more interested in foreign language acquisition.