More specificity would be more good

[mitchf]

URL: ​http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial03/#intro-tutorial03
(Section: Write views that actually do something)

I'm running through your 4-part Django tutorial. This being my first tutorial and project in Django, I am looking for concrete best practices and not vague statements like "First, create a directory, somewhere on your filesystem, whose contents Django can access. (Django runs as whatever user your server runs.) Don't put them under your document root, though. You probably shouldn't make them public, just for security's sake."

Everything in Django is just days old to me. It would so much more helpful for you say "First, create the directory 'templates' in your 'mysite' directory. Make sure Django can access the directory and don't make it public, for security's sake", unless of course it is best practice for these files to live in the application directories and not the project directory. As a new user I desperately need clear steps and best practices.

[Russell Keith-Magee]

THe point of that particular instruction is to avoid specificity. You really can put the directory anywhere. It doesn't need to be a subdirectory of mysite, or anything else. The instructions provided really are best practice -- the templates directory just needs to be accessible, and preferably not in the document root of your webserver.