I currently use a bit of LINQ, SQLAlchemy, Blaze/Odo, and a few other tools, depending on the project. However, primarily I'm still writing SQL in 2017 despite

I currently use a bit of LINQ, SQLAlchemy, Blaze/Odo, and a few other tools, depending on the project. However, primarily I'm still writing SQL in 2017 despite want of a prettier alternative. Here's the main reasons: * In pretty much every project I've ever worked on, there's a small, un-standardised set of database functions I rely on. I need to parse strings and dates, round to the start or end of the month or week, group and categorise values in order to build a dimension table. I've never found a SQL generator that can provide this, although I believe SQLAlchemy Core folks are working on it. * Planners are still not so good that you can ignore them altogether. I often rely on EXPLAIN to see why things are taking seconds instead of milliseconds, and I often end up looking for ways to trick the planner. If I'm using a SQL generator, I'm now trying to trick both the planner and the generator, neither of which I have direct control over. * If you're building a lot of complicated queries, setting up indexes and views, and so on, it's hard to get past the advantages of an IDE. Currently, the best tools are pretty much all database specific. Even just being able to quickly see your data in a tabular format is huge.