Art Yudin - Building Versatile Mobile Apps with Python and REST: RESTful Web Services with Django and React

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the books product page, located at www.apress.com/978-1-4842-6332-7 . For more detailed information, please visit http://www.apress.com/source-code .

I enjoy watching travel videoblogs. Of particular interest are places in Africa and Asia. I have noticed that no matter how remote the place is or poverty-stricken the community, most natives have smartphones. As a matter of fact, in Africa, most web applications for microloans and livery services were initially designed and issued as mobile apps. Simply because potential users of those services do not have computers, but mobile devices have penetrated everywhere. Half of the world population has smartphones, and the rate is still growing.

The smartphone is no longer a means of communication but rather a remote control to our lives. There is no task that cannot be done with a smartphone. We no longer go to the banks; there is an app for that. We order food, watch movies, chat with friends, and buy stuff online with mobile apps. So, if you have an idea to make a difference in the world, why not implement it as a mobile app?

This book will go through the process of building mobile applications for iOS and Android platforms. We will use Django Python web framework and React Native, JavaScript library. Some people might ask why you would not use Swift and Java. Well, the answer is we want to build a versatile mobile app. The Python Django framework would allow us to have one back-end solution for iOS and Android devices. Besides, you could use the same core to run a desktop version if you want.

You should regard this book as a practical guide to building versatile mobile apps. The main idea is to introduce Django and React Native and show how they can be applied in mobile development. I will emphasize on the principal features of these modern technologies and explain how to use them. The goal of this book is to get you started constructing mobile web apps using Python. You can think of it as a trampoline to your future accomplishments in the field of web development. I hope this book will encourage you to practice and learn more about Django and React Native.

OK, what kind of mobile web app we would build in this book? I love pizza. Who doesnt love pizza? According to http://thepizzajoint.com , Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza each day, or 350 slices per second.

Being a New Yorker, I think that here we have the best pizza in the world. However, recently, I have tried an amazing deep-dish pizza in Chicago, and it completely rocked my gastronomic experience. If you have never tried a deep-dish pizza at Uno, you should definitely put it on your bucket list. I understand that it might be difficult because you live somewhere far and probably also know an extremely good pizza spot you would recommend without any hesitation. There are more than 61,000 pizzerias in this country, and each one of them has its own fans that would refer it as the best pizza in the universe. That is why we need a web app to share our favorite pizza places with other pizza lovers. We could call our mobile app pizzavspizza as a spot to compare and debate about pizza places. It would be cool to have all great pizza joints in one place. People could add their hometown pizzerias and find a good place to eat when they travel.

I am really excited to get started and go the whole way from the idea to building two mobile apps ready for the Apple App store and Google Play store. You can find updates and working back-end project at pizzavspizza.com . If you have any questions regarding our project you can always message me on Twitter or Instagram at artyudin_nyc. All code that we will use in this book is available at https://github.com/programwithus .

Thanks to my Wife for inspiring me every day. A very special thanks to my Mom and Dad for always supporting me.