The more joins or when you need more performance, drop into SQL. SQLAlchemy's expression language is a good middle ground. I will start there if I need to do m

The more joins or when you need more performance, drop into SQL. SQLAlchemy's expression language is a good middle ground. I will start there if I need to do more than a couple of joins. As some people have noted here, I think the biggest problem is that people who only know ORMs will have trouble because their understanding of the database will be limited by their lack of SQL knowledge.