On Dec 16, 2011, at 1:44 AM, Brian Will wrote: > I concede that for web2py's current user base, this is a minor point > of null concern, but I feel it's a notable blemish in an otherwise > exceptionally clean and well-thought-out API, and a few blemishes like > this here and there can represent serious learning hurdles.
I'm with Brian on this general idea. The DAL really is fairly difficult to grasp, I think for at least two fundamental reasons. One is that the Python overloading is hidden and has to be learned or guessed. The other is that web2py is likely to attract developers (like me) who have limited experience with SQL. Consequently, it's highly desirable to reduce or eliminate anything in the DAL API that further confuses or complicates matters. (I also don't think it helps too much in this regard to have very different syntaxes for doing the same thing; it confuses us slow learners. Python is not Perl.)
