Well, when I see code like that, I see lots of moving parts, all with their own weird API, interacting in odd ways. You just have to know that thing X takes a s

Well, when I see code like that, I see lots of moving parts, all with their own weird API, interacting in odd ways. You just have to know that thing X takes a string, an object and a callback function, and there are twenty thing Xs, not five. Complexity breeds bugs like rabbits; if you can't look at something and understand what's going on (potentially drilling down into an abstraction or two), then it's going to be a maintenance nightmare. If you can come up with something that's easy to use and powerful, like the declarative_base stuff in SQLAlchemy over the top of the Mapper/Relationship, then I'm all ears - but if complexity is the price that I have to pay for that then it's not an easy tradeoff to make, and in a lot of cases you're better off with the easier, worser solution. A quick question: do you have any idea of how much work it would take to port SQLAlchemy to Django properly? ie. so that all of the fancy Django manage commands work. I'm assuming a fair bit, but it might be a good way to get some sort of help as far as SQLAlchemy goes. Or you might be happy to continue forging ahead solo, I don't know. Just a thought ;)