On 09/03/12 14:49, Tom Evans wrote:

>> Yes, since no one needs it. Okay no one isn't true, but no one (for true
>> this time) who needed it stepped up and said "I'll implement it and see that
>> it ends up in trunk"
>>
>
> I'm sorry, that completely mis-characterises the situation. Lots of
> people want this, but every single time this has been brought up since
> I started using django (1.0), a core dev or BFDL has explicitly ruled
> it out, saying "we cannot do this, requires schema migration, we'll
> look at it for the next version".

This is not true. There have been times when we have said we cannot
consider it right now, and that a solid proposal should be brought up at
the calls for proposals for 1.1/1.2/1.3 etc., or at other times when the
core developers can look at it.

And every time, the proposal has either been missing or simply not been
adequate - for example, the GSoC 2010 and 2011 proposals regarding this.
Russell gave detailed feedback on why these solutions were not adequate
[1], and at other times has provided feedback on possible strategies
[2]. And the people who went away to work on the problem have gone
silent or admitted defeat. One presumes they fixed their immediate
problem in a way that would not be a general solution, and moved on, and
that is perfectly understandable. A adequate solution to this is very
hard, and probably requires solving several other big problems first
(like at least one of lazy foreign keys/virtual models/database migrations).

It isn't, however, impossible. Our definition of 'need' is that someone
is sufficiently motivated to overcome the obstacles, and contribute a
solution that works for other people as well as themselves.

Regards,

Luke

[1] http://goo.gl/swTpr

[2] http://goo.gl/7p1JN

--

Luke Plant || http://lukeplant.me.uk/