Looking forward to this. I've put off learning Django in-depth until 1.0 because the APIs for fundamental things like forms keep changing. I don't want to invest in learning obsolete methods or port code to newer versions. And much of the documentation is full of version-related caveats. Having a canonical, consistent API to build on will be great.

That's good. But premature, because frankly, Djang is still way too complicated to use. The API should not have been frozen yet. Rather the django API should have been changed to become more simple. Example - template tags.

What?!? I've evaluated Rails and Django and I'd say Django is simpler.

It might not make as many assumptions as RoR does, but IMHO that makes it simpler; you need to be explicit.

Django may be easier than rails. I would not know because I've never used rails. But Django is way tougher to use than MFC or OWL because of how inconsistent the various things you can do are. So from my particular programming non-web background, django can sorely stand to be improved.

>So from my particular programming non-web background, django can sorely stand to be improved.

I think that's the key statement though. As well, your comparison to MFC/OWL is pretty apples to oranges as well. django isn't a library, it's a framework.

Are you suggesting Template tags are too complex? How would you do it?

(Not being facetious, I just thought they were one of the cooler parts of django and am interested in your thoughts.)

Template tags are a cool part of django, but they are a basic feature. They should have more prominence.

Template tags should go the views file and work exactly the same way as the other views, but be called differently from the template. This is easier to understand and use than having to learn a new syntax again.

Django stands to gain a lot by simplifying things and encouraging more class use.