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 cyclohexane@lemmy.ml to c/programming@programming.dev
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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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[–] luckystarr@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

Since working with SQLAlchemy a lot (specifically it's SQL compiler, not it's ORM), I don't want to work with SQL any other way. I want to have the possibility to extract column definitions into named variables, reuse queries as columns in other queries, etc. I don't want to concatenate SQL strings ever again.

Having a DSL or even a full language which compiles to SQL is clearly the superior way to work with SQL.