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Asked: 2026-05-12T06:35:46+00:00

Directions from my supervisor: I want to avoid putting any logic in the models.py

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Directions from my supervisor:
“I want to avoid putting any logic in the models.py. From here on out, let’s use that as only classes for accessing the database, and keep all logic in external classes that use the models classes, or wrap them.”

I feel like this is the wrong way to go. I feel that keeping logic out of the models just to keep the file small is a bad idea. If the logic is best in the model, that’s where it really should go regardless of file size.

So is there a simple way to just use includes? In PHP-speak, I’d like to propose to the supervisor that we just have models.py include() the model classes from other places. Conceptually, this would allow the models to have all the logic we want, yet keep file size down via increasing the number of files (which leads to less revision control problems like conflicts, etc.).

So, is there a simple way to remove model classes from the models.py file, but still have the models work with all of the Django tools? Or, is there a completely different yet elegant solution to the general problem of a “large” models.py file? Any input would be appreciated.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Django is designed to let you build many small applications instead of one big application.

    Inside every large application are many small applications struggling to be free.

    If your models.py feels big, you’re doing too much. Stop. Relax. Decompose.

    Find smaller, potentially reusable small application components, or pieces. You don’t have to actually reuse them. Just think about them as potentially reusable.

    Consider your upgrade paths and decompose applications that you might want to replace some day. You don’t have to actually replace them, but you can consider them as a stand-alone “module” of programming that might get replaced with something cooler in the future.

    We have about a dozen applications, each model.py is no more than about 400 lines of code. They’re all pretty focused on less than about half-dozen discrete class definitions. (These aren’t hard limits, they’re observations about our code.)

    We decompose early and often.

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