Re: auto_now, auto_now add -- good or bad?
On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 9:32 AM, Russell Keith-Mageewrote: > On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, Shawn Milochik wrote: >> A discussion broke out in our office today about using these features, >> because there are blog posts[1] bashing them and a comment by JKM >> saying they should go away[2]. > > Heh. This is an argument that goes back quite some time. It's even > been captured on video (it's a long video, but I swear it's in there > somewhere) :-) > > [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tscMnoS4YU8 Curiosity got the better of me: It's at about 34:35. Russ %-) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
Re: auto_now, auto_now add -- good or bad?
On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, Shawn Milochikwrote: > A discussion broke out in our office today about using these features, > because there are blog posts[1] bashing them and a comment by JKM > saying they should go away[2]. Heh. This is an argument that goes back quite some time. It's even been captured on video (it's a long video, but I swear it's in there somewhere) :-) [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tscMnoS4YU8 > It seems that all of the arguments against are based on the fact that > there were bugs in the past (links in the comments of the blog post > above). However, the "go away" comment is five years old and they're > still there, and the bug tickets have been patched. > > It's easy enough to do what these features do in a more explicit way. > > Considering these facts, I'm wondering what the consensus is in the community: > > A. They're still there because they're too annoying to deprecate > or just not important enough to spend time on. > > B. They're useful shortcuts and their use is preferable to manual > replacements. I know I'm in disagreement with Jacob here, but I'm in camp B. For me, the two most common use cases for a timestamp are a creation timestamp and an update timestamp, so it makes perfect sense that they are baked in as a top-level feature for timestamp model fields. I've used these flags extensively in production, and I'm not aware of any bugs that are actually problems in production. A *long* time ago, there were some issues with serialization, but I fixed those a long time ago because I was using timestamp flags. So - for me, it's not worth removing them. They serve a real-world common use case, they're not fundamentally broken as designed (as far as I am aware), and removing them would require a whole lot of pain in the wider community. Yours, Russ Magee %-) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
Re: auto_now, auto_now add -- good or bad?
> I'll give a weak vote for C: They can be, and presumabley have been, made > to > work correctly, in a peer reviewed setting, by folks with significant > experience, > so having the less experienced noob implement his own is a little like > saying > that you should implement your own encryption scheme instead of using an > available implementation - you have a good chance at getting it wrong. > That analogy is quite a stretch. There's an enormous difference between implementing an encryption scheme and writing 4 lines of python code. Besides, getting a save() override wrong is probably a *good* thing for a newcomer. Cheers, André -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
Re: auto_now, auto_now add -- good or bad?
On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Andre Terrawrote: > Shawn, > > > Chalk one up for option A. > > I never, ever, ever, use them and they can get dropped for all I care, > considering how easy they are to implement "manually". > > They are also my go-to example for teaching new users how to modify their > model's save method and I believe the shortcuts only add "magic" without > bringing in real benefits. One could even argue that their existence creates > an extra, unnecessary step in the learning curve for beginners. Bottom line, > it's more often a nuisance than it is a shortcut. > > > Cheers, > André I'll give a weak vote for C: They can be, and presumabley have been, made to work correctly, in a peer reviewed setting, by folks with significant experience, so having the less experienced noob implement his own is a little like saying that you should implement your own encryption scheme instead of using an available implementation - you have a good chance at getting it wrong. Bugs happen, and they get noticed and fixed. The prior existence of a bug is not a good justification to avoid the feature, it's a justification for the effort of staying up to date on patches. Bill -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
Re: auto_now, auto_now add -- good or bad?
On 15 juil, 18:22, Shawn Milochikwrote: > A discussion broke out in our office today about using these features, > because there are blog posts[1] bashing them and a comment by JKM > saying they should go away[2]. > > It seems that all of the arguments against are based on the fact that > there were bugs in the past (links in the comments of the blog post > above). However, the "go away" comment is five years old and they're > still there, and the bug tickets have been patched. Indeed. > It's easy enough to do what these features do in a more explicit way. Yeah, quite a lot of things are "easy to do in more explicit way" in Python (if by explicit you mean low-level). Who needs a class statement ? Just call type() with the relevant args, that's way more explicit... ;) > Considering these facts, I'm wondering what the consensus is in the community: > > A. They're still there because they're too annoying to deprecate > or just not important enough to spend time on. > > B. They're useful shortcuts and their use is preferable to manual > replacements. As far as I'm concerned, a named argument in a field definition is "more explicit" than some ad-hoc code in a model's save method. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
Re: auto_now, auto_now add -- good or bad?
On Jul 15, 2011, at 9:22 AM, Shawn Milochik wrote: > Considering these facts, I'm wondering what the consensus is in the community: > >A. They're still there because they're too annoying to deprecate > or just not important enough to spend time on. > >B. They're useful shortcuts and their use is preferable to manual > replacements. > > > [1] > http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2006/nov/02/django-tips-auto-populated-fields/ > [2] https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/1056 > I use them. So, B. I'm not crazy about their names, however. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
Re: auto_now, auto_now add -- good or bad?
Shawn, Chalk one up for option A. I never, ever, ever, use them and they can get dropped for all I care, considering how easy they are to implement "manually". They are also my go-to example for teaching new users how to modify their model's save method and I believe the shortcuts only add "magic" without bringing in real benefits. One could even argue that their existence creates an extra, unnecessary step in the learning curve for beginners. Bottom line, it's more often a nuisance than it is a shortcut. Cheers, André On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 1:22 PM, Shawn Milochikwrote: > A discussion broke out in our office today about using these features, > because there are blog posts[1] bashing them and a comment by JKM > saying they should go away[2]. > > It seems that all of the arguments against are based on the fact that > there were bugs in the past (links in the comments of the blog post > above). However, the "go away" comment is five years old and they're > still there, and the bug tickets have been patched. > > It's easy enough to do what these features do in a more explicit way. > > Considering these facts, I'm wondering what the consensus is in the > community: > >A. They're still there because they're too annoying to deprecate > or just not important enough to spend time on. > >B. They're useful shortcuts and their use is preferable to manual > replacements. > > > [1] > http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2006/nov/02/django-tips-auto-populated-fields/ > [2] https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/1056 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django users" group. > To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.
auto_now, auto_now add -- good or bad?
A discussion broke out in our office today about using these features, because there are blog posts[1] bashing them and a comment by JKM saying they should go away[2]. It seems that all of the arguments against are based on the fact that there were bugs in the past (links in the comments of the blog post above). However, the "go away" comment is five years old and they're still there, and the bug tickets have been patched. It's easy enough to do what these features do in a more explicit way. Considering these facts, I'm wondering what the consensus is in the community: A. They're still there because they're too annoying to deprecate or just not important enough to spend time on. B. They're useful shortcuts and their use is preferable to manual replacements. [1] http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2006/nov/02/django-tips-auto-populated-fields/ [2] https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/1056 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en.