SQLAlchemy is renowned for its object-relational mapping (ORM) based on a design pattern, where Python classes are mapped to database tables. In practice, this means that an extra abstraction layer is added, so we use the SQLAlchemy API to talk to the database instead of issuing SQL commands. SQLAlchemy takes care of the details behind the scenes. The drawback is that you have to learn the API, and may have to pay a small performance penalty. In this section, you will learn how to set up SQLAlchemy, and populate and query databases with SQLAlchemy.
The following is the command to install SQLAlchemy:
$ pip3 install sqlalchemy
The latest version of SQLAlchemy at the time of writing is 1.1.4. The download page for SQLAlchemy is available at http://www.sqlalchemy.org/download.html, with links to installers and code repositories. SQLAlchemy also has extensive documentation available at http://www.sqlalchemy.org/library.html.
SQLAlchemy requires us...