title: Why can't django set attributes outside the database?
body: <p>It seems like django was designed to store data in databases. While writing my first app, I forgot about this and tried to set up a model like so:</p>
  
  <pre><code>class Team(models.Model): 
      stage = 0
      users_score = {}
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I soon realised that I could get this attribute but I couldn't set it:</p>
  
  <pre><code>team = Team()
  team.stage = 1
  team.save()
  print Team.objects.get(pk=1).stage
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This would print 0 when I expected 1. In my models file I change <code>stage = 0</code> to </p>
  
  <pre><code>stage = models.IntegerField(default=0)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And it works as I want it to. Why can django get this attribute, but not set it? I'm guessing it's because the setattr() method has been changed. How can I verify this?</p>