[Jonathan Ellis] | I'm presenting on databases and python at a user group, and it | belatedly occurred to me to get the list's input on this: what's your | favorite feature of sqlalchemy? If you've used similar tools, why did | you switch?
[Sorry, turned in to a bit of a rant. Posted it anyway in case it seems interesting to anyone else.] Well good luck with the presentation. In all honestly, I haven't yet switched, but I'm following sqlalchemy eagerly so that when I finally get those few moments of calm, I'll be able to pick it up and run. Why? Because I'm a SQL Developer first and a Python programmer (a close) second. Essentially, whatever I can't do in SQL I do in Python. Since my business is databases and their structures and interactions, that seems to put me outside the obvious reach of conventional ORMs which seem a little more geared to website-y interactions: add a record; retrieve a record; update a record, possibly with some straightforward joining and aggregations. [*] Now, I bet that experts in SQL Object, PyDO2, Django-SQL (or whatever it's called) and other various tools can all point out how I can do these things in their toolkit of choice, ut the point is that I *want* the option to do what I want in SQL without losing whatever the the Python-SQL framework is offering. Or at least, I want to be able to express my database structures using the SQL which my database brain handles most naturally without sacrificing Pythonic clarity and so on for the rest of the code. What that's meant in practice is that I've used my own homegrown wrapper over the various db-api modules which I need and put my sql into multiline strings or .sql files which I read in when I need them. All of which is fine, but doesn't scale well. It seems to me that sqlalchemy is offering a way to pick and choose, and a fairly SQL-like expression of relational queries. I could be wrong -- altho' I hope not -- because apart from Mickey Mouse examples, I've hardly used the framework yet. But if I do, that'll be why. While I'm ranting, my one main suggestion would be to institute a cookbook-style page on the docs where people could post up (or at least contribute) "How Do I...?" samples. I would find this a good complement to the existing well-written docs, and when I get those few calm moments I have every intention of contributing in this way (or any other). Bit more than I meant to say, but there you are. Tim Golden [*] As an aside, I already use PyDO2 in a (small) production website, and it works admirably. I've even contributed bits back to it. However, a lengthy email conversation with its maintainer early on made it clear that his needs and emphases were different from my own. ________________________________________________________________________ This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit: http://www.star.net.uk ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_idv37&alloc_id865&op=click _______________________________________________ Sqlalchemy-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sqlalchemy-users
