Django WSGI setup documention makes a critical oversight with unexperienced users

[tobz]

I installed Django with the intent to use it to make a website, but also to learn Python. I have never touched Python before in my life before I went to install Django. When I went to set my settings file in the WSGI configuration file, I supplied 'settings.py' naturally, as after reading the documentation, it gives a value that suggests a full filename. ('filename.extension' rather than just 'filename')

Apparently, in Python, you load modules by just using the 'filename' part, not 'filename.extension' - this seems like a critical oversight when it comes to explaining setup to people unfamiliar with Python.

I can only wonder how many users have this issue when trying to setup Django and as a result give up, and totally miss out on being able to learn both Python and Django.

I urge you to mention this caveat so that users with no Python experience don't get stuck on it like I did.

[tobz]

Forgot to mention, this is the documentation I'm refering to: ​http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/modwsgi/

[JohnDoe]

Why aren't you just using the development server to get started ? there's not really any reason to rush deployment if you got nothing running yet.

This is also the suggestion the tutorial has (see. ​http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/#the-development-server).

[Russell Keith-Magee]

I'm not sure what documentation you are referring to when you say "it gives a value that suggests a full filename".

The documentation you link to gives the speifi example:

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'mysite.settings'

and I can't find a single reference to settings.py, or the words "full" or "filename".

Tutorial 1 [repeats this advice ​http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/#playing-with-the-api].

I'm marking this invalid. If you want to provide a specific suggestion of the text that needs to be modified, feel free to reopen with that specific suggestion.