A strong stack doesn't mean quality. Django for example lacks on quality and maturity. There are great tools like cucumber, rspec and rails who delivery a dynamic and productive environment, they are ages ahead python based solutions.
How about something simple like pretending there we have django 1.0 (not 1.2 which is quite new), and let us try to connect to 3 databases at once with django's ORM?
Oh, we are screwed it can't do that. Ok, then lets try to swap out our ORM to sqlalchemy.... crap all nice plugins broke, admin panel doesn't work etc. This is why REALLY django lack quality and maturity - it's components are not versatile enough - and in my book this is a very serious issue because if my requirements are diffrent from what django makers assumed then I'm doomed. This is why people mention other (in my opinion superior, but not that easy to use), solutions to the problem. My point is - majority of people fail to notice such serious flaws like unability to use more than 1DB at once (yes i know it got finally fixed after few years). I'd rather use one tool that should cover my needs than be forced to switch them because they don't fit the needs of project.
If your application required connection to three databases concurrently, then you almost certainly wouldn't have chosen Django 1.0 as your application development platform.
If connecting to multiple databases is a new requirement, then you're likely going to have to change much of your code / environment anyway, no matter whether or not you're using Django 1.0, 1.2, or Rails.
Also, for what it's worth, the OP doesn't mention just Django, it mentions Pylons, Repoze, etc. Django isn't the only Python tool in the arsenal.
Besides that, if you swap out your database abstraction layer in almost any language that I know of, you're going to have bigger problems than 'finding new plug-ins'. I can't think of a single ORM that is replaceable to another without significant retooling above the model layer. Most notably though, since you cite it as an example, losing the admin panel can hardly be considered as too big a deal, since the last time I looked at Rails, Symfony or Cake, none of them even offered that as a feature.
As for your last sentence: I'd rather use one tool that should cover my needs than be forced to switch them because they don't fit the needs of project.
Can I safely assume that you're building everything in Java then? I mean, honestly, we pick the right tool for the job, don't we? We shouldn't be building things in Django because it's all we know, just as we shouldn't be building things in Ruby/Rails for that reason. Take a look at the challenges and figure out what makes sense.
If you don't know wha the challenges are before you start developing (they're often surprising), then just start iterating until you figure out what they are. In this case, whatever framework or development platform lets you iterate the most quickly is the winner, whatever language it happens to be written in.
"I'm curious why you think Django lacks quality and maturity." - This is what he wrote, so i gave him main reason why django is not the tool for me.
Which are perfectly valid in my opinion. And no - with sqlalchemys design, it DOES NOT require you to change your code if you just need to use few models with other databases - the change was about 20 lines of code in my case. Which i take would be not possible at all with django 1.0. You are right about "right tool for the job", for the kind of work I do, glue frameworks like pylons or bfg are a lot better choice - it's really way harder to corner me with some requirement that this stack can't handle.
And as for challenges, like I said - business conditions changed and I had to connect to 3 db's at once, no problems at all - if one chooses his tools very carefully in advance that can save a lot of headache later. Like I said, sorry for confusing you.
You can't predict everything that client could need/forgot to mention, so the more versatile your toolbox is the better.
I love python for many reasons, but I ain't convinced yet for web and tests
I have experience with both Rails and Django. After careful deliberation, we chose to use Django over Rails in part because of Python and its extremely diverse community. Ruby on Rails is a cutting-edge framework, but the Python community was what really convinced us to use Django.
Right. No.
There are two cases - either I know about ActiveRecord and Django's ORM, and therefore I am in a position to assess what you say, or I don't.
In the first case you've told me nothing except your opinion, and you've added no information. That would be worth a down-vote.
In the second case, not knowing about these things I have no idea what your opinion is. I'm assuming there's an air of sarcasm, but I can't tell. Without expressing youself clearly and positively it can be hard to tell. Again, you've added no information. That would be worth a down-vote.
And that's why.
I responded to a vague comment which asserted that Django is "years behind", without any substantial proof, apart from "it lacks quality and maturity". Compared to that, I gave a lot more information, expressing my opinion on why that comment is far from the truth.
Granted, I didn't go into details - I did mention a specific part of both frameworks, where I think one framework (Django) has a significant advantage over the other.
But by all means, downrate me, but then please do that for the comment I responded to, which didn't add even as little information as I did, and only expressed his opinion without any specifics.
You complain about an assertion without support, and then you appear (to me) to do the same.
It's the "double whammy". If you make a bald assertion without support then - if I care - I'll ask for your reasons and evidence, but I won't downvote for that alone.
You said:
> I gave a lot more information, expressing my
> opinion on why that comment is far from the truth.
You say:
> I did mention a specific part of both frameworks,
If you had said something like:
> I disagree - consider component/feature X. It seems
> to me that Django is *way* ahead in that regard, and
> for some applications that's far more important.
I hope that makes it clearer. You may disagree with that policy, but it's what I've gravitated to after some years of being here.