I don't want to get into a framework war or anything -- in fact, I'm a Django developer currently after several years working with Rails, and relatively happy with the switch.

That being said, both #1 and #2 above are plain wrong.

Django template tags are a PITA to write, have weird inconsistencies (largely due to the first issue causing them to be implemented in a very hack-ish way) and don't have access to any request or application state that isn't explicitly added to the template context. Rails template helpers are powerful, easy to write, and ubiquitous. Those properties also make them easy to abuse for functionality that should absolutely be in a model or view function.

South, on the other hand, is powerful, complex, and not part of the Django core. That simple fact immediately makes is less useful. Any Rails developer (and by extension, any Rails codebase) will be familiar with AR migrations. No extra dependencies, training, or versioning issues to worry about.

I mostly agree with #3, though I definitely still find some funky edge cases with Django form validation. They aren't a terribly gently introduction to the "Right Way" of doing form handling for someone more comfortable with HTML than Python, either.

You make some good points. I've always felt that if your template tags are doing too much, your front-end is getting too bloated. That kind of logic should be left to your models/views. I know there's a lot of disagreement in the community over the lack of real Python code in your templates, but it just encourages sloppy spaghetti. Forcing you to not rely on advanced logic in your templates makes you a better developer.

I do agree that migrations should be a part of core/contrib, given how common of a use case they are. I don't agree that it makes it less useful. You need plenty of gems to get Rails to satisfy many common use cases. No framework plugs all the holes, you always have to extend. Both django and Rails make getting and using those extensions hilariously easy, so there's really no barrier to entry for any developer.

> I know there's a lot of disagreement in the community over the lack of real Python code in your templates, but it would just encourages sloppy spaghetti.

You'll see a lot of this in the Rails community too; lots of people use haml over erb for exactly this reason.