The way I see it, Active Record is an explicit acknowledgement that the database and its relations are important. AR modelling maps almost directly onto the dat

The way I see it, Active Record is an explicit acknowledgement that the database and its relations are important. AR modelling maps almost directly onto the database relations, rather than what might be more natural in OO. It's actually harder to go straight to the database if you're using a more powerful ORM, because with a more powerful ORM, you're hiding implementation details. You tend to obfuscate the difference between a calculated and a stored column, a denormalized vs normalized attribute, composite vs entity, etc. That makes it harder to write SQL to get what you want, not easier, and when you do write the SQL, you're slicing through a thicker business layer and are at more risk of violating invariants. If you've got a monolingual, homogeneous tech stack, the whole database might be abstracted away and you might use an OO interface which uses distributed caches and locks etc. You're much more likely then to write your queries as loops and manual filters and joins.