Yes. The key is designing to the tool’s strength. Build a row oriented database model in the application language that matches the DB schema. This is trivial fo

Yes. The key is designing to the tool’s strength. Build a row oriented database model in the application language that matches the DB schema. This is trivial for the ORM (like Dapper or ActiveRecord) and you save boiler plate. For simple apps this might be enough. For richer domain models it is often simpler to map to the domain model from the database model mapping in application code than fighting the ORM to do it just right from DB to domain model. Another alternative is to design to tools and design your domain model to reduce the friction from the ORM. These trade-offs are specific to each application.