Question

I’ve been using south but I really hate having to manually migrate data all over again even if I make one small itty bitty update to a class. If I’m not using django I can easily just alter the table schema and make an adjustment in a class and I’m good.

I know that most people would probably tell me to properly think out the schema way in advance, but realistically speaking there are times where you need to immediately make changes, and I don’t think using south is ideal for this.

Is there some sort of advanced method people use, perhaps even modifying the core of Django itself? Or is there something about south that I’m not just grokking?

Answer 1

I really hate having to manually migrate data all over again even if I make one small itty bitty update to a class.

Can you specify what kind of updates? If you mean adding new fields or editing existing ones then obviously yes. If you mean modifying methods that operate on fields then there is no need to migrate.

I know that most people would probably tell me to properly think out the schema way in advance

It would certainly help to think it over a couple of times. Experience helps too. But obviously you cannot foresee everything.

but realistically speaking there are times where you need to immediately make changes, and I don’t think using south is ideal for this.

Honestly I am not convinced by this argument. If changes can be deployed “immediately” using SQL then I’d argue that they can be deployed using South as well. Especially if you have automated your deployment using Fabric or such.

Also I find it hard to believe that the time taken to execute a migration using a generated script can be significantly greater than the time taken to first write the appropriate SQL and then execute it. At least this has not been the case in my experience.

The one exception could be a situation where the ORM doesn’t readily have an equivalent for the SQL. In that case you can still execute the raw SQL through your (South) migration script.

Or is there something about south that I’m not just grokking?

I suspect that you are not grokking the idea of having orderly, version-controlled, reversible migrations. SQL-only migrations are not always designed to be reversible (I know there are exceptions). And they are not orderly unless the developers take particular care about keeping them so. I’ve even seen people fire potentially troublesome updates on production without even pausing to start a transaction first and then discard the SQL without even making a record of it.

I’m not questioning your skills or attention to detail here; I’m just pointing out what I think is your disconnect with South.

Hope this helps.