> In any sufficiently complex application, something like a query builder that allows different parts of the application to work together to lazily compose queries
I don't see this as a given and I don't accept it in my own applications. If you need data, go to the data access layer. If it doesn't provide you what you need, build a new repository / provider / whatever your pattern is.
Whether it's an ORM or a home-built query compositor or whatever, one thing I know from experience is that once your application is "sufficiently complex" that you start to (incorrectly) believe you need this, your application has become too complex to use it reliably.
You absolutely will be mistakenly evaluating these builders in the wrong layers, iterating results without realising you're generating N+1 queries, etc.
I don't see this as a given and I don't accept it in my own applications. If you need data, go to the data access layer. If it doesn't provide you what you need, build a new repository / provider / whatever your pattern is.
Whether it's an ORM or a home-built query compositor or whatever, one thing I know from experience is that once your application is "sufficiently complex" that you start to (incorrectly) believe you need this, your application has become too complex to use it reliably.
You absolutely will be mistakenly evaluating these builders in the wrong layers, iterating results without realising you're generating N+1 queries, etc.
You don't need an ORM.