> "Attempts to avoid this with ORMs usually replace an annoying amount of typing with an annoying amount of magic and loss of efficiency."
People seem to keep using poorly-designed ORMs or are stuck with some strange anti-ORM ideology.
Modern ORMs are fast, efficient, and very productive. If you're working with relational databases then you're using an ORM. It's a question of whether you use something prebuilt or write it yourself (since those objects have to be mapped to the database somehow). 99% of the time, ORMs generate perfectly fine SQL (if not exactly what you'd type anyway) while handling connections, security, mapping, batching, transactions, and other issues inherent in database calls.
The 1% of the time you need something more complex, you can always switch to manual SQL (and ORMs will even let you run that SQL while handling the rest as usual). The overall advantages massively outweigh any negatives, if they even apply to your project.
People seem to keep using poorly-designed ORMs or are stuck with some strange anti-ORM ideology.
Modern ORMs are fast, efficient, and very productive. If you're working with relational databases then you're using an ORM. It's a question of whether you use something prebuilt or write it yourself (since those objects have to be mapped to the database somehow). 99% of the time, ORMs generate perfectly fine SQL (if not exactly what you'd type anyway) while handling connections, security, mapping, batching, transactions, and other issues inherent in database calls.
The 1% of the time you need something more complex, you can always switch to manual SQL (and ORMs will even let you run that SQL while handling the rest as usual). The overall advantages massively outweigh any negatives, if they even apply to your project.