[simonw]

The design of the ORM changed substantially once, early in Django's history, when the "magic removal branch" landed. There are some notes on the new syntax that introduced here: https://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/RemovingTheMagic#Codecha...

That branch merged on May 1st 2006: https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2006/may/01/magicremova...

I've long found Django's commitment to not breaking too much at once inspiring. The release notes and upgrade guides are really solid.

[vandahm]

I used Django a lot from about 2007 to 2010 and, then, went for several years without using it at all. When I came back to it, I was delighted to find that everything still worked like it was supposed to, just better. Congrats on getting it right on the first try. That's...not something that happens very often in software.