I used to think of Procrastination as a villain. If I had to complete a task before a deadline next week, I would not start work until the deadline gets uncomfortably close. The work ends up being more rushed than if I had used the entire week. Procrastination often robs the opportunity of producing better quality work.

I do not sense Procrastination as an urge or a feeling. It is rather the absence of the feelings like I need to start working on something. Frankly, it is also the knowledge that I could start but probably not now. To procrastinate is both a passive activity where I am not thinking about a task due for the future and an active choice to work on seemingly more urgent tasks due in the near future. Hence, a vicious circle.

As I get older, I realize that time is not as plentiful and readily available resource anymore. There are work and family commitments that leave only islands of time in my daily calendar. The ability to pull an all-nighter is not practical as you age since a sleep deficit cannot be easily overcome anymore. So delaying tasks often means unfinished tasks or lost opportunities. Procrastination has become a more urgent problem for me than ever.

But again, it is not accurate to always characterize Procrastination as a villain. There are times when I found delaying on a creative work helped me find better ideas than I would have if I had started earlier. ‘Sleeping on a problem’ can be surprisingly effective for finding a fresh perspective for complex issues. Most creative people do not progress at a steady rate instead they work in inspired sprints and take breaks in between.

So forcing oneself to work when your mind is not ready is not very useful. Is Procrastination our mind’s defense mechanism against attempting to solve poorly understood problems? Maybe. This is why there is no one-size-fits-all solution to everyone’s Procrastination problems.

But I will share some of my techniques below that have helped me solve this problem to a large degree.

Digital Minimalism

Most of us spend an incredible amount of time on our smartphones. Many apps are designed to hook you into spending the most amount of your time so that they can monetize it effectively. Watch out for such apps. In my experience these apps are of the following kinds:

• Social networking apps: e.g. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter. I have uninstalled most of them except WhatsApp and Twitter.
• Entertainment apps: e.g. YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Games. I watch only highly recommended or very promising content. I set aside weekends and holidays for movies or longer shows.
• News apps: e.g. Hacker News, Reddit, Newspapers. These are essential to keep myself updated but it is very easy to get lost in rabbit holes and doom scrolling.

Your list of apps might be different. Now most phones come with well being apps that tell you how many times and how long you use each app. Start from that and do a self evaluation of whether you want to spend so much time on each app. Turn off notifications from all apps except the ones you really, really need.

Today your time is a precious resource that must be protected from or mindfully shared with such apps. So it is not enough to practice self-control, you might need to modify your environment by uninstalling the least essential ones or time limit your access to such apps.

I saved a lot of time everyday by practicing digital minimalism. Procrastination is also reduced due to less availability of such easy time sinks.

Recommended Reading:

• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World - Helps you understand why you need to minimize digital stuff
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones Systematic changes rather than big bang approaches to bring change

Paper TODO lists

There are a million TODO apps. They are all horrible. Because any digital device has a notification or a tempting app waiting for you even if you have followed my advice of turning off most notifications.

Paper is the best alternative. After trying all sorts of approaches I have settled on writing my daily TODO in a A5 size notebook. The hardest part is to build a daily habit of opening the notebook and groom your TODO list. But it is worth it.

Paper has the following advantages:

• Avoids distractions: Remember taking your phone for noting down something, getting sidetracked into several apps and eventually forgetting why you took the phone in the first place?
• Writing down helps remember: To me writing with a pen is slower than typing. But that deliberate process of writing helps me remember better than typing. Keeping TODO list items in your memory is important because most of the planning and replanning of everyday tasks happens in your head.
• Spatial memory: Sometimes I remember that I wrote something 3 months back in my notebook and can recall specifics like it was on the left side, written in red ink or had a funny Peanuts doodle next to it. Sure it is not easily searchable by keywords. But the way my memory works, it is still retrievable and a lot more likely to be retained in my mind.
• Fun and Creative: Try adding a funny doodle next to an item in a TODO app. Or try drawing the headline of an upcoming fun event in balloon letters. Paper has no limitations to your creativity. Check out galleries of Bullet Journalists. Some are probably procrastinating but a little bit of creativity is so inspiring.

Recommended Reading:

• Bullet Journal - Basics - I use a slightly modified bullet journaling method to manage my TODOs

Timeboxing

Imagine you somehow manage to start working on a project several days in advance. One hour later, to your extreme frustration - the page is still blank. This paradox of having abundant time yet no progress can be understood if you know the Parkinson’s law - “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.

I found the best way to tackle this problem is to use timeboxing. Take any project and break it down into clear and actionable tasks that have a limited time to complete. Some tasks might seem clear but could be complex and involve multiple steps. For example, “Write an Essay” can be split into “Research”, “Outline”, “Draft” and “Review” tasks.

Studies show that time-boxing is the most effective way to beat Procrastination. Just the act of dedicating time to a task ensures clarity and focus. I find the limited time aspect of time boxing to be simultaneously reliving and motivating. Since there is an internal deadline I have to meet, I avoid the trap of time abundance.

From my experience here are a number of Do’s and Don’ts to follow while time-boxing:

• Don’t pack your day with work. Find ‘recharge time` in between tasks to recharge your batteries throughout the day. Coffee breaks, walks, meditation (more on that below), fooling around or simply sitting idle. I prefer 30 mins breaks between every 2 hours.
• Don’t aim for a lot in one day. Stick to three significant tasks for the day. Everything else is a bonus.
• Don’t be too rigid about the timings. Be flexible. They are boxes, they can be moved around!
• Don’t be fixed in a spot or fixated on a device. Try a change of scenery every few minutes. For example, after 2 hours of working on the laptop, avoid taking a break by watching a video on the same screen.
• Do revisit your old timeboxes. Improve your estimates by reflecting on older gues-stimates and comparing with the actual time
• Do recognize your work. At end end of the day:
  1. Tick off every task you finished to reward yourself for completing them.
  2. Write down things you did but did not plan for. Then tick them off.

Recommended Reading:

• Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less: A required reading on why you need to plan your day with less productive activities than you think.

Mindfulness

I have been practicing mindful meditation for the past 3 years. It has been extremely effective in reducing my habit of procrastinating. It is an effective tool with surprising real world benefits.

Like many people, I had a lot of misconceptions about mediation. There are many kinds of meditation. The vipassana approach of meditation that I follow is:

• Non-religious - you are not chanting any mantras
• Not about concentrating hard - although it may improve your focus, the goals are different.
• Not time consuming - you can do just 10 minutes per day although I find 20 mins more effective.
• Not done in a perfectly silent environment - it is possible to meditate in any environment. If noise is affecting you in the beginning, get noise cancelling headphones or earplugs.

It might not be clear how meditation is effective in managing your work. I found it helps me respond rather than react to situations. It is like a superpower to slow down time (QuickSilver?). Then I can pause and objectively evaluate the situation.

For example, I will begin to notice that feeling of anxiety when I think of cleaning my desk. It is due to the fact I don’t have my bookshelf organized to keep all the books lying around. Organizing my small bookshelf means donating some books and that means connecting with my bibliophile friend whom I haven’t spoken to in a while. Instead I decided to take a break (and relieve my anxiety) to watch a comedy special on Netflix. Sounds like a lot to unpack doesn’t it?

This brings us to the question that we never answered - Why do we procrastinate? Unlike what experts used to think, it is not a self-discipline problem. It is mostly an emotional problem. There are different kinds of procrastination like passive and active types. So it is important to introspect and understand what is blocking you. Mindfulness helps you immensely in identifying the root cause.

Recommended reading:

• Mindfulness in Plain English - Best introduction to mindful meditation
• The Psychology of Procrastination: Understand Your Habits, Find Motivation, and Get Things Done - Great book to understand the modern scientific view of the causes of procrastination

Summary

Procrastination should not be seen as the problem but a symptom. It needs to be addressed or it will start preventing you from reaching your goals. I have a few techniques that have worked for me over the last few years. I am reasonably productive following them diligently. Hope you will be too.

Some affiliate links are present in this article. Would not impact you but would help sustain the blog.

Have you ever struggled to create a beautiful landing page for your Django site?

A common ask by users of the Edge project template was the support for home pages that had a completely different layout than the inner pages. For example, a first time visitor opening https://example.com should see a landing page that shows the benefits of signing up. But once signed-in the same url https://example.com should show the user interface of the web application.

This is a common pattern today. For example this is how different github.com looks to a first time visitor and a logged in user:

What’s a Landing Page

A landing page is a standalone page created for a specific marketing conversion goal, like subscribing to a newsletter or ebook downloads. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on the conversion goal of signing up users to your website or online product.

A good landing page must be convincing enough for a visitor to share their personal details like their name and email. Even then, ask as few details as possible in the sign up form. If it is not relevant like the Company field, it is best to remove it. Expedia dropped the “Company” field from their booking form and saw an increase of $12 million a year in profit.

It must also be optimized for quick scanning. A widely quoted but often misunderstood study by Nielsen Norman Group showed how reading on the web is F-shaped. This is often bad for users and businesses since it skips important content. The recommended solution is to include important content in the first two paragraphs and have headings with the first two words bearing the most content.

A homepage can be distinct from a landing page. But for many visitors who come to know about your site say through a link shared on a social network or an ad, the home page is the gateway to your product. So many sites check if the user has not logged in and show a landing page instead.

Challenges in Django

The challenge for most Django sites is that this requires extensive changes to the base template. A base template defines the basic structure of the site. Django documentation explains it further - a base “skeleton” template contains all the common elements of your site and defines blocks that child templates can override.

The landing page differs considerably in content and layout from the inner pages. Here are some of the main differences:

• Objectives: The primary purpose of the landing page is to typically get users to sign up. The entire page is focussed on convincing the reader to perform the Call to Action (CTA) of clicking the “Sign up” button. Once you have signed up, your objective changes to give a good user experience while using the product i.e. the web application.
• Layout: Landing pages typically have a simplified and vertical layout where you are scrolling down to view engaging visuals and exciting animations. However a logged in user typically needs a more functional interface where various interface elements like sidebars are always within reach.
• Navigation: Most modern landing pages remove the top menu entirely along with other links to internal and external pages to simplify the experience. It does not make sense to show the application menu or the user profile drop down to a visitor who has not yet signed up.
• Assets: Landing pages, like other marketing pages, have scripts and other assets that track the effectiveness of pages like click through rates and conversion metrics. The inner pages would have different assets needed to create and maintain an effective user interface.
• Optimizations: According to a study of the top 1000 websites, landing pages are 35% heavier but load faster by 56% than internal pages. This could be because the landing page needs to give a much more optimized user experience as it forms the crucial “first impression”.

In theory, a Django application could be crafted with a base template that can accommodate both a landing page and a web application layout. In practice it will be extremely cumbersome. As you have seen these two kinds of pages often have nothing in common. They might even be designed by two different teams. So, given a single base template you will often end up in overriding most of the blocks. There has to be a better way .

It’s morphin' time!

Before we go further, it will be useful to give a name to this common pattern. Despite a lot of research, I couldn’t find any existing literature that names this pattern. So I went ahead and called it a Dimorphic Home Page pattern. The word Dimorphic means a thing that exists in two different forms. In this case a home page that changes form depending on whether the user has been authenticated or not.

Here is a simple view (taken from Edge source ) that implements this solution:

from django.views.generic.base import TemplateView


class HomePageView(TemplateView):
	user_template_name = "users/home.html"
	anon_template_name = "anons/home.html"

	def get_template_names(self):
    	if self.request.user.is_authenticated:
        	return self.user_template_name
    	else:
        	return self.anon_template_name

We have used Class Based Generic Views instead of Function Based Views because they are easy to extend. For instance, if you need to pass a signup form in the context variable (and remove another page reload from conversion) then another view class can be derived easily.

In terms of organization, the templates for unauthenticated and authenticated users are kept in separate directories named say anon and users respectively. This makes it easier to prevent unintentional leakage of sensitive data in unauthenticated pages.

Designing a Beautiful Landing Page

The landing page of Edge has been designed based on modern landing page best practices. If you study several actual landing pages, you would observe many of them use common animation components like animate.css and wow.js. This is what powers the sliding and dancing images or text as you scroll down revealing new sections.

The dimorphic Edge homepage is a work in progress but it currently looks like this:

Design sensibilities change over time. But the template should be a good starting point for solo Django developers who are not familiar with design. It would be less daunting than starting from a blank HTML document.

Try what is new

Check out the Edge Django 3.x branch with its dimorphic landing page. Follow the instructions in the README to create a quick Django project. We welcome your feedback and contributions.

A new programming problem has been trending recently - write a program to print numbers from one to hundred without using any loops or mentioning numbers in the source. Naturally, I was interested in a solution in Python.

I got many brilliant answers on Twitter. But first let me show you how I approached it. I was looking for a general and readable solution than the shortest one. My thought process was – even if we cannot mention numbers we can convert non-numeric types to numbers. So I tried with Booleans and Strings:

zero = int(False)
one = int(True)
hundred = int(f"{one}{zero}{zero}")


def shownum(i):
    if i <= hundred:
        print(i)
        shownum(i + one)


shownum(one)

Starting from scratch, we get 0 and 1 from the False and True values. Then to create 100, the upper limit of the loop, we use the new favourite string interpolation method – f-strings.

Overcoming the limitation of not using loops was quite straightforward - just use Recursion. We have to be careful though, Python does not have Tail Call Optimization (since Guido prefers to have proper tracebacks), so if you keep increasing the upper limit of the loop you will end up in a stack overflow.

Whiz kids on Twitter

To my poser tweet yesterday, there were many wonderful solutions that were way shorter than mine. Here are some of them:

The Long Scream by Abhiram

print([*range(len('a'), len('aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'))])
😂

— Abhiram R (@abhicantdraw) March 22, 2021

What I like here is the clever use of the * operator to convert the range object into a list tersely. And of course the liberal use of the “a”-s that just screams “I cannot be unseen”.

Short and Succinct by Rohan

list(map(int,range(ord(b"e"))))

— Rohan Verma (@rhnvrm) March 22, 2021

Cleverly taking advantage of Python’s built-in ord function to get the ASCII code of lower case ‘e’ (it is 101 not 100), we sort of have a code-golf winner. Sort of because it starts count from 0 not 1 as the original question posed. But this is Twitter, a correction soon emerged.

Note that the map and int functions are not really required here, making it even more shorter! In a direct message Rohan shared an improved solution that starts counting from one:

list(filter(lambda x: x,range(ord(b"e"))))

Evolved by Anirudh

list(range(ord('a')-ord('a'), ord('e')))

— Anirudh Menon (@anikmenon) March 23, 2021

With a minor correction, this code fixes the start count to 1. As a nice touch the strings form ‘bae’ which must be the cutest term for a friend.

Can This Get Shorter by Arun

With the benefit of having seen all the ideas, I can finally put forth my shortest solution (with 23 characters):

[*range(True,ord("e"))]

So that’s the end of this code golf for me. That is, until someone else comes up with something shorter!

How fast can you go from getting an amazing product idea to bringing it in front of real users? It is a process that has several steps - some fun but mostly boring. It could also take a long time. In fact the longer it takes, the lower your motivation levels dip and competition starts looming large. This is why we use productivity enhancers like frameworks, libraries and templates not just to reach the users faster but also to ensure that we ship it.

Django Edge is a Django project starter template that I started in 2014 with the idea of making web apps faster using my go-to toolset - Django, Bootstrap and many of the most useful Django libraries. The project is quite popular with over 770 stars on Github. Unlike many other starter templates, it shipped with some essential pages like a homepage, register, login etc that were presentable and working.

An update to Edge has been long overdue. But the Django landscape has changed a bit. For a long time, the most common use of the framework was as a back-end for a front-end JavaScript framework like React or Vue (and any other possible front-ends like a mobile app). This typically uses the excellent Django Rest Framework (DRF) to build a REST API which the front-end consumes. This could be one possible direction that Edge could take.

However the use of state-heavy front-end frameworks with millions of dependencies has led to Javascript fatigue. The trend is somewhat coming back to back-end rendered pages. Choosing “Boring Technology” might counter-intuitively leave lots of room for innovation in the areas that you may find fun and interesting. There is really no need to throw away Django Templates if you need a single page application thanks to HTMX. So continuing to ship with beautifully designed templates is another direction that Edge could take as well.

I was tempted to try this “Double-edged” approach for a moment. But then I realized that it is already a lot of work to maintain just one open source project. Users who need Django for a REST API will probably find it incomplete unless it is also married with Rest, Vue, Angular or some other shiny new JavaScript framework out of the box. This is a truly fragmented base that keeps switching new frameworks or even abandoning all frameworks.

Hence I went back to the familiar Edge. Provide a fully working web application starter with the best of what Django can provide. Aim to be a good starting point for single developer projects. Focus on the long requested features like social authentication or Docker and improve on what it currently does.

So this is probably the first of many posts where I share what I am planning to do with Edge. I believe that open development is the best way to build open source projects. Try the beta here: https://github.com/arocks/edge/tree/django3

Pull requests are welcome! 😊

Earlier this week, Anthony a french economics university student wanted to talk to me over Zoom about my ray tracer tutorials. He and his friend were new to Python but were excited to implement their own ray tracer after following my videos. One of the questions that popped up in the conversation was - “Can we put all the classes in one file instead of breaking it into individual files per class?”. I said, “Of course” and noticed a wave of relief in their faces. In fact, I explained, my earlier implementation was all in one file and later broken up for better pedagogy.

But the charm of an entire project in a single file is compelling. I remember seeing a Sinatra web application a few years ago containing the entire application and assets like HTML templates and CSS in a single file. Presenting all the components in the same file gave a complete high-level overview of the project by simply scrolling up and down.

Normally, at this point, someone would suggest a microframework. But it is not that easy.

Microframeworks

Microframeworks take a minimalistic approach by omitting certain components or directing you to a few recommended components. For instance, Bottle contains basic form handling capabilities but has no protection against CSRF or clickjacking.

So the approach is generally to use another library like bottle-utils-csrf. This leaves the task of integration to the developer. This is not to pooh-pooh tiny web frameworks. I love the idea (especially Bottle which I think is really cute). But for public facing sites, I prefer the safety and convenience of Django.

So I am tempted to try this one-file trick in Django. Let’s try to make a non-trivial web application with forms, templates and images. How does one go about doing something like that?

Note: if you prefer to watch the video version, click on the video below:

Django Applications in One File

Minimal

Let’s start small by creating a minimal Hello World application in Django. It might be amusing to some Django developers that we will not start with the startproject command. In fact, it is not necessary for Django to work at all. All that initial directory structure and files like settings.py are for your convenience.

First, create a simple file called app.py with the following:

import sys

from django.conf import settings
from django.urls import path
from django.http import HttpResponse

settings.configure(
	DEBUG=True,  # For debugging
	SECRET_KEY="a-bad-secret",  # Insecure! change this
	ROOT_URLCONF=__name__,
)


def home(request):
	return HttpResponse("Welcome!")


urlpatterns = [
	path("", home),
]

if __name__ == "__main__":
	from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line

	execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)

Yes, that’s all you need. There are some bad practices like hard coding the secret key (easily fixed). But the sheer elegance of everything being in hardly a screenful is quite rewarding.

The command to run this file is: python app.py runserver 8080

Now we will skip a couple of steps (they are in the video) and move on to a simple “Coming Soon” landing page.

Coming Soon Application

The idea of a coming-soon page is to gauge interest in a product before it is released. Such pages must have a clear call to action (CTA) like asking for your email. Ideally it should have minimum friction and yet collect all the relevant information.

Let’s look at my updated app.py:

import os
import sys

from django.conf import settings
from django.urls import path
from django.http import HttpResponse, HttpResponseRedirect
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
from django.template import RequestContext, Template
from django import forms

CSV_LIST = "thelist.csv"

settings.configure(
	DEBUG=(os.environ.get("DEBUG", "") == "1"),
	ALLOWED_HOSTS=["*"],  # Disable host header validation
	ROOT_URLCONF=__name__,
	SECRET_KEY=os.environ.get("SECRET_KEY", "a-bad-secret"),
	TEMPLATES=[{"BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates"}],
	MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES=(
    	"django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
    	"django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware",
    	"django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware",
	),
)


class EnlistForm(forms.Form):
	email = forms.EmailField(
    	required=True,
    	label=False,
    	widget=forms.EmailInput(attrs={"placeholder": "Email"}),
	)
	referrer = forms.CharField(required=False, widget=forms.HiddenInput())


def home(request):
	if request.method == "POST":
    	form = EnlistForm(request.POST)
    	if form.is_valid():
        	email = form.cleaned_data["email"]
        	referrer = form.cleaned_data["referrer"]
        	ip = request.META.get("REMOTE_ADDR")
        	print(f"Got email of {email}")
        	with open(CSV_LIST, "a") as csv:
            	csv.write(f"{email},{referrer},{ip}\n")
        	return HttpResponseRedirect("/thanks/")
	else:
    	form = EnlistForm(initial={"referrer": request.META.get("HTTP_REFERER")})
	context = RequestContext(
    	request, {"content": "Sign up for early access", "form": form}
	)
	return HttpResponse(MAIN_HTML.render(context))


def thanks(request):
	context = RequestContext(
    	request,
    	{"content": "Thank you for signing up. We will contact you!", "form": None},
	)
	return HttpResponse(MAIN_HTML.render(context))


urlpatterns = [
	path("", home),
	path("thanks/", thanks),
]

app = get_wsgi_application()


MAIN_HTML = Template(
	"""
<html>
  <head>
	<title>Coming Soon | Flying Cars</title>
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
	<style>
 	@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Exo:wght@400;500;600;700;800;900&display=swap');
 	*{
   	margin: 0;
   	padding: 0;
   	box-sizing: border-box;
   	font-family: 'Exo', sans-serif;
 	}
 	html,body{
   	display: grid;
   	height: 100%;
   	width: 100%;
   	place-items: center;
   	background-color: #343434;
   	/* Thanks to Hero Patterns for the background */
   	background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 56 28' width='56' height='28'%3E%3Cpath fill='%23000000' fill-opacity='0.4' d='M56 26v2h-7.75c2.3-1.27 4.94-2 7.75-2zm-26 2a2 2 0 1 0-4 0h-4.09A25.98 25.98 0 0 0 0 16v-2c.67 0 1.34.02 2 .07V14a2 2 0 0 0-2-2v-2a4 4 0 0 1 3.98 3.6 28.09 28.09 0 0 1 2.8-3.86A8 8 0 0 0 0 6V4a9.99 9.99 0 0 1 8.17 4.23c.94-.95 1.96-1.83 3.03-2.63A13.98 13.98 0 0 0 0 0h7.75c2 1.1 3.73 2.63 5.1 4.45 1.12-.72 2.3-1.37 3.53-1.93A20.1 20.1 0 0 0 14.28 0h2.7c.45.56.88 1.14 1.29 1.74 1.3-.48 2.63-.87 4-1.15-.11-.2-.23-.4-.36-.59H26v.07a28.4 28.4 0 0 1 4 0V0h4.09l-.37.59c1.38.28 2.72.67 4.01 1.15.4-.6.84-1.18 1.3-1.74h2.69a20.1 20.1 0 0 0-2.1 2.52c1.23.56 2.41 1.2 3.54 1.93A16.08 16.08 0 0 1 48.25 0H56c-4.58 0-8.65 2.2-11.2 5.6 1.07.8 2.09 1.68 3.03 2.63A9.99 9.99 0 0 1 56 4v2a8 8 0 0 0-6.77 3.74c1.03 1.2 1.97 2.5 2.79 3.86A4 4 0 0 1 56 10v2a2 2 0 0 0-2 2.07 28.4 28.4 0 0 1 2-.07v2c-9.2 0-17.3 4.78-21.91 12H30zM7.75 28H0v-2c2.81 0 5.46.73 7.75 2zM56 20v2c-5.6 0-10.65 2.3-14.28 6h-2.7c4.04-4.89 10.15-8 16.98-8zm-39.03 8h-2.69C10.65 24.3 5.6 22 0 22v-2c6.83 0 12.94 3.11 16.97 8zm15.01-.4a28.09 28.09 0 0 1 2.8-3.86 8 8 0 0 0-13.55 0c1.03 1.2 1.97 2.5 2.79 3.86a4 4 0 0 1 7.96 0zm14.29-11.86c1.3-.48 2.63-.87 4-1.15a25.99 25.99 0 0 0-44.55 0c1.38.28 2.72.67 4.01 1.15a21.98 21.98 0 0 1 36.54 0zm-5.43 2.71c1.13-.72 2.3-1.37 3.54-1.93a19.98 19.98 0 0 0-32.76 0c1.23.56 2.41 1.2 3.54 1.93a15.98 15.98 0 0 1 25.68 0zm-4.67 3.78c.94-.95 1.96-1.83 3.03-2.63a13.98 13.98 0 0 0-22.4 0c1.07.8 2.09 1.68 3.03 2.63a9.99 9.99 0 0 1 16.34 0z'%3E%3C/path%3E%3C/svg%3E");
 	}
 	::selection{
   	color: #fff;
   	background: #FC4782;
 	}
 	.wrapper{
   	color: #eee;
   	max-width: 900px;
   	text-align: center;
   	padding: 0 50px;
 	}
 	.signup {
   	margin-top: 30px;
   	margin-bottom: 10px;
 	}
 	.content {
   	margin-top: 40px;
   	margin-bottom: 10px;
 	}
	</style>
  </head>
  <body>
	<div class="wrapper">
  	<svg width="600" height="300" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 600 300" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g transform="translate(0,312)"><path d="m218.36-289.66h163.29c29.039 0 52.417 23.378 52.417 52.417v45.564c0 29.039-23.378 52.417-52.417 52.417h-163.29c-29.039 0-52.417-23.378-52.417-52.417v-45.564c0-29.039 23.378-52.417 52.417-52.417z" fill="#204a87" stop-color="#000000" stroke="#eeeeec" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="4"/><g fill="#729fcf" stroke="#eeeeec" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="4"><path d="m240.88-162.15c21.473-37.192 42.946-74.385 64.419-111.58" stop-color="#000000"/><g stroke-linecap="round"><path d="m276.15-249.32h-72.081" stop-color="#000000"/><path d="m259.9-221.32h-56.025" stop-color="#000000"/><path d="m267.69-235.32h-63.714" stop-color="#000000"/><path d="m370.37-162.15c-21.473-37.192-42.946-74.385-64.419-111.58" stop-color="#000000"/><path d="m332-249.93h72.081" stop-color="#000000"/><path d="m348.25-221.93h56.025" stop-color="#000000"/><path d="m340.46-235.93h63.714" stop-color="#000000"/><path d="m240.88-162.15c21.473-26.526 42.946-53.051 64.419-79.577" stop-color="#000000"/></g><path d="m370.37-162.15c-21.473-26.526-42.946-53.051-64.419-79.577" stop-color="#000000"/></g><g fill="#eeeeec"><path d="m183.74-116.06-6.3858 17.316h12.795zm-2.6568-4.6378h5.337l13.261 34.795h-4.8942l-3.1696-8.9261h-15.685l-3.1696 8.9261h-4.9641z" style="text-decoration-color:#000000;text-decoration-line:none"/><path d="m222.66-120.7h4.7078v34.795h-4.7078z" style="text-decoration-color:#000000;text-decoration-line:none"/><path d="m271.14-102.22q1.5149.51273 2.9365 2.1907 1.445 1.678 2.8899 4.6145l4.7777 9.5087h-5.0573l-4.4514-8.9261q-1.7246-3.4959-3.356-4.6378-1.6081-1.142-4.4048-1.142h-5.1273v14.706h-4.7078v-34.795h10.627q5.9663 0 8.9028 2.4937t2.9365 7.5278q0 3.2861-1.5382 5.4535-1.5149 2.1674-4.4281 3.0064zm-11.793-14.613v12.352h5.9196q3.4026 0 5.1273-1.5615 1.7479-1.5848 1.7479-4.6378t-1.7479-4.5912q-1.7246-1.5615-5.1273-1.5615z" style="text-decoration-color:#000000;text-decoration-line:none"/><path d="m329.38-118.02v4.9641q-2.3772-2.214-5.0806-3.3094-2.6802-1.0954-5.7099-1.0954-5.9663 0-9.1358 3.659-3.1696 3.6357-3.1696 10.534 0 6.8752 3.1696 10.534 3.1696 3.6357 9.1358 3.6357 3.0297 0 5.7099-1.0954 2.7035-1.0954 5.0806-3.3094v4.9175q-2.4704 1.678-5.2438 2.517-2.7501.83901-5.8264.83901-7.9006 0-12.445-4.8243-4.5446-4.8476-4.5446-13.214 0-8.39 4.5446-13.214 4.5446-4.8476 12.445-4.8476 3.123 0 5.873.839 2.7734.8157 5.1972 2.4704z" style="text-decoration-color:#000000;text-decoration-line:none"/><path d="m366.18-116.06-6.3858 17.316h12.795zm-2.6568-4.6378h5.337l13.261 34.795h-4.8942l-3.1696-8.9261h-15.685l-3.1696 8.9261h-4.9641z" style="text-decoration-color:#000000;text-decoration-line:none"/><path d="m421.6-102.22q1.5149.51273 2.9365 2.1907 1.445 1.678 2.8899 4.6145l4.7777 9.5087h-5.0573l-4.4514-8.9261q-1.7246-3.4959-3.356-4.6378-1.6081-1.142-4.4048-1.142h-5.1272v14.706h-4.7078v-34.795h10.627q5.9663 0 8.9028 2.4937t2.9365 7.5278q0 3.2861-1.5382 5.4535-1.5149 2.1674-4.4281 3.0064zm-11.793-14.613v12.352h5.9196q3.4026 0 5.1272-1.5615 1.7479-1.5848 1.7479-4.6378t-1.7479-4.5912q-1.7246-1.5615-5.1272-1.5615z" style="text-decoration-color:#000000;text-decoration-line:none"/></g></g></svg>
  	<h1>All Your Traffic Problems Solved!</h1>
  	<h2>Feel the future with affordable levitating cars.</h2>
  	<div class="content">
    	{{ content }}
    	{% if form %}
      	<form action="." method="post" class="enlist_form">
        	{% csrf_token %}
        	{{ form.non_field_errors }}
        	{{ form.email.errors }}
        	{{ form.referrer }}
        	{{ form.referrer.errors }}
        	{{ form.email }}
        	<button type="submit">Add Me</button>
      	</form>
    	{% endif %}
  	</div>
	</div>
  </body>
</html>
"""
)


if __name__ == "__main__":
	from django.core.management import execute_from_command_line

	execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)

Except for the absence of individual files, most of the code should be familiar to a Django developer. There is a large HTML template (including two SVG images) embedded as a string.

Note that I do not use the ORM here. Django does seem to need a directory structure for that (Unless any reader could show me how to do it in a single file).

Hopefully this shows how minimal Django could be. You might be able to use your favourite framework in places which you didn’t think were possible.