On Python security amidst recent Rails/YAML vulnerabilities
I think load and dangerous_load is a wonderful paradigm for API design.  It bakes security into the core use of your framework for non-security devs.  It also makes the framework more productive for security professionals, since for an assessment you can grep for dangerous_load and focus your efforts on making sure those (rare) calls are hermetically sealed from user input rather than having to audit every possible use of the 100x more common load command.  (That is where the Rails community is right now, and it sucks.)This is similar to requiring a whitelist for mass assignment (rather than making a blacklist optional): it calls out in the code "These are our weak points!  Check them carefully!"