Having used both (though Django much more heavily) I don't see any practical differences between migrations in a non-declarative system (Rails) and a declarativ

Having used both (though Django much more heavily) I don't see any practical differences between migrations in a non-declarative system (Rails) and a declarative one (Django). Migrations are always a bit of a pain, but database changes (at least to any field managed by a framework) will almost always require code changes -- so what are you gaining by leaving the field declaration out of the model? I'd say that the declarative syntax is actually a bonus. It makes the code much more discoverable, and I haven't seen a real downside.