Hi all, Spawned by the recent discussion of the big picture of Python Web frameworks, we've decided to start a new branch of Django development that uses SQLAlchemy (http://www.sqlalchemy.org/) as the underlying database library.
Robin Munn, author of an excellent SQLAlchemy tutorial (http://www.rmunn.com/sqlalchemy-tutorial/tutorial.html) and heavy contributor to Django several months ago, has agreed to be the lead developer on this branch. I'm sure he'll bring up any issues/implementation questions on this mailing list, and if you want to help out in some fashion, make yourself known! Here are some notes about implementation: * The Django database API would not change, and the SQLAlchemy backend would be *optional*. The point of the SQLAlchemy backend would be to expose the underlying SQLAlchemy API if you need to do something truly complicated, rather than having to fall into raw SQL. * At the moment, a Django model inherits from django.db.models.Model, and convention is to put "from django.db import models" at the top of your models.py file. I think it'd be smoothest (and really cool) if people were able to switch that to "from django.contrib.sqlalchemy.db import models" and not have to change any code. In other words, SQLAlchemy models would be instances of django.contrib.sqlalchemy.db.models.Model rather than django.db.models.Model. * As that implies, this would be an *optional* add-on -- the existing model machinery would stay put. I.e., people could still use Django without SQLAlchemy, and that would be the default. I wouldn't rule out a full migration to SQLAlchemy (i.e., making it default) in the future, but we'd rather not add a dependency at this point. * A model object's "_meta" attribute should be preserved. (This is the metadata about the model.) Although it starts with an underscore, there's enough code out there using it that makes it a de-facto standard part of the database API. * As for refactoring the existing code to add hooks for SQLAlchemy -- that's fine as long as it's not too much of an added overhead for non-SQLAlchemy users. * This branch will be called "sqlalchemy" in the Django Subversion repository. Adrian -- Adrian Holovaty holovaty.com | djangoproject.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
