Well right, this is exactly a SQLAlchemy-style syntax, except a tad more verbose :). This is the "dropping into a SQLAlchemy-style approach" I referred to.

As far as the "AST allows caching" advantage, over at https://bitbucket.org/zzzeek/sqlalchemy/issue/3054/new-idea-... we're working out a way to give people access to the "lambda: <X>" -> cached SQL in a similar way, if they want it.