The smart "if" template tag (http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/releases/1.2-alpha-1/#s...) was quite the welcome surprise for me in the release notes! I swear I've written a dozen custom template tags all because it wasn't possible to perform simple comparisons in the if condition.

What would be really smart is if they just allowed Python code there.

That's just not what we're trying to do with Django's template language.

However, if you'd like a template language that's closer to pure Python, I'd suggest giving Cheetah (http://cheetahtemplate.org/) a try. I've used it in the past; quite nice.

also check out Jinja2 (http://jinja.pocoo.org/2/)

It is now trivially easy to plug in whatever template language you like, and still have all the usual Django shortcuts work with it:

http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/templates/api/#usin...

Excellent news. readonly_fields and the new messages framework will be quite handy. Not to mention improved {% if %}. Solid work.

multiple database connections is going to be my favorite new feature: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/db/multi-db/