Can you really say that's easier to read than this? I think it's generally less about readability and more about flexibility and error-checking (when it's not

Can you really say that's easier to read than this? I think it's generally less about readability and more about flexibility and error-checking (when it's not about being stubborn). If you want to generate SQL queries on the fly, it may be faster and less error-prone to use python objects rather than strings.