Confusing error message when creating a model with unspecified attributes that have no defaults

[sanaani]

Using the example project at ​https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/intro/tutorial02/.

The example project says to instantiate a model in this way:
q = Question(question_text="What's new?", pub_date=timezone.now())

However, if you do something silly like not assigning attributes:
q = Question("What's new?", timezone.now())

The model will still instantiate. What's super confusing is that if you forget to type in the attributes, then apply
q.save()

You get the bizarre error ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'Question'

If a model object is created without an assigned attribute and the missing attribute has no default specified, then some type of warning should appear. I wasted about 3 hours today figuring out this dumb mistake; the error message isn't related to the initial error.

[Tim Graham]

I'm not sure if a backwards-compatible solution is feasible. Objects created with the ORM assume the developer is doing things properly. If user input is incoming, then you can call Model.clean() to get a better error message. If someone has an idea of an improvement, feel free to reopen.