Django Learning Day 17

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🚀 Django Learning Journey – Day 17

Today was not the smoothest day health-wise, but I promised myself one thing: no two consecutive days without touching code.
So even with low energy, I showed up — and even the “basic setup” taught me something valuable.

⚠️ The CommandError Lesson

I started by creating my new Django app…
and instantly faced a CommandError.

Why?
Because I named my app “authentication” — which is already a Python module.

Django simply said:
❌ “You cannot use built-in module names as app names.”

It caught me off guard, but taught me an important rule:
✨ Never use existing Python module names as your app name.

How many of you fell into the same trap?
Tell me I’m not alone! 😄

📦 Best Practice Repeated: Requirements Setup

From my previous project, I continued the same practice:

pip freeze > requirements.txt

Every time I start a new project, this has already become a habit — and a really helpful one.

❓ Curious Question #1 — Linking URLs for Multiple Apps

Now that I’m building an authentication system as a separate app, I have one question for the community:

🧭 What is the best way to structure URLs when you have multiple Django apps?
Especially for something like an “auth” app?

Should we:

Create a urls.py inside every app?

Or keep everything inside the main project urls.py?

Or include each app's URLs with path("auth/", include("auth_app.urls"))?

Would love to hear how you all manage this in real-world projects!

❓ Curious Question #2 — External Databases on Render

Since I deployed my first project on Render, I’m curious:

📌 How do you connect Render apps to external databases like PostgreSQL?
Do you configure them in environment variables?
Or use Render’s built-in PostgreSQL service?

Any tips or gotchas to watch out for?

❤️ Signing Off

Not the most productive day in terms of coding…
But a huge win in terms of consistency and learning.

Even on slow days, the journey continues.
Tomorrow, I hope to pick up more momentum and dive deeper into building the authentication workflow.

Let me know your thoughts or suggestions — always eager to learn from this wonderful community!