Question

In most MVC/ORM type systems django’s views.py might be referred to as a controller, and their templates the views. Is this a different design pattern that they are following? Why is it called views.py?

Answer 1

This question is answered in the FAQ.

Django appears to be a MVC framework, but you call the Controller the
“view”, and the View the “template”. How come you don’t use the
standard names?

Well, the standard names are debatable.

In our interpretation of MVC, the “view” describes the data that gets
presented to the user. It’s not necessarily how the data looks, but
which data is presented. The view describes which data you see, not
how you see it. It’s a subtle distinction.

So, in our case, a “view” is the Python callback function for a
particular URL, because that callback function describes which data is
presented.

Furthermore, it’s sensible to separate content from presentation –
which is where templates come in. In Django, a “view” describes which
data is presented, but a view normally delegates to a template, which
describes how the data is presented.

Where does the “controller” fit in, then? In Django’s case, it’s
probably the framework itself: the machinery that sends a request to
the appropriate view, according to the Django URL configuration.

If you’re hungry for acronyms, you might say that Django is a “MTV”
framework – that is, “model”, “template”, and “view.” That breakdown
makes much more sense.

At the end of the day, of course, it comes down to getting stuff done.
And, regardless of how things are named, Django gets stuff done in a
way that’s most logical to us.