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The article gave some examples that I've run into myself: using email addresses instead of usernames for authentication, and adding additional fields to the User class. I also dislike the template language. Why invent your own language and control structures when everyone using it knows python? Mako (http://www.makotemplates.org/) does a good job of not reinventing the wheel.

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One of the main assumptions behind the Django templating language is that you don't need to know Python.

http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/misc/design-philosophie...

"The Django template system recognizes that templates are most often written by designers, not programmers, and therefore should not assume Python knowledge."

In my experience this has often been the case.

I figured that had to do with it, but it doesn't really explain why they don't just use an equivalently powerful subset of python. Better yet, allow full python like Mako does, and let the designers decide what subset of that to use in templates.

The template language isn't for you.

Which is why, given the choice, I would use something more like Mako.

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