this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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I wish writing SQL queries was more popular than ORMs (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Some backend libraries let you write SQL queries as they are and deliver them to the database. They still handle making the connection, pooling, etc.

ORMs introduce a different API for making SQL queries, with the aim to make it easier. But I find them always subpar to SQL, and often times they miss advanced features (and sometimes not even those advanced).

It also means every time I use a ORM, I have to learn this ORM's API.

SQL is already a high level language abstracting inner workings of the database. So I find the promise of ease of use not to beat SQL. And I don't like abstracting an already high level abstraction.

Alright, I admit, there are a few advantages:

  • if I don't know SQL and don't plan on learning it, it is easier to learn a ORM
  • if I want better out of the box syntax highlighting (as SQL queries may be interpreted as pure strings)
  • if I want to use structures similar to my programming language (classes, functions, etc).

But ultimately I find these benefits far outweighed by the benefits of pure sql.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Agree 100%. Especially when you're doing more complicated queries, working with ORM adds so much complexity and obfuscation. In my experience, if you're doing much of anything outside CRUD, they add more work than they save.

I also tend to doubt their performance claims. Especially when you can easily end up mapping much more data when using a ORM than you need to.

I think ORMs are a great example of people thinking absolutely everything needs to be object oriented. OO is great for a lot of things and I love using it, but there are also places where it creates more problems than it solves.