This doesn't ring true for me, at least - I've been programming professionally (using SQL) since the mid-90s, and these days very much appreciate the time-savin

This doesn't ring true for me, at least - I've been programming professionally (using SQL) since the mid-90s, and these days very much appreciate the time-savings that ORMs (on Windows, for the most part) provide. With my favourite ORM - XPO from Developer Express - there is a decent tool for monitoring queries and sessions, and if I need to I can write custom SQL to improve performance (which almost never happens). Another important point is that it's, IMO, much easier to maintain ORM-based code, and another programmer coming along after me can more easily get started on understanding what I've implemented. Once place I worked in the past we had a 'SQL guru' who wrote these massively complicated SQL queries that could be understood by no-one by him.