Transitioning From PHP to Django
jjguy: I've worked with SQL for a long time, with a variety of implementations and front-ends.  Django's object model hurt my head.  I didn't get it.  There's simply too much black magic.e.g, how is:  Entry.objects.filter(
    headline__startswith='What').exclude(
        pub_date__gte=datetime.now()).filter(
            pub_date__gte=datetime(2005, 1, 1))

(from http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/db-api/)easier than:  SELECT * from Entry where headline like "What%" and pub_date...  wha?  see?  wtf is that chaining filter actually doing? 

my 2 cents: write your own DB access layer, fight the obscure black magic.(nothing but quibbles with the templating engine, though)