ORMs are deceptively difficult. You need a slight understanding of the underlying joins. Also, the syntax keeps changing (at least between Rails versions). But

ORMs are deceptively difficult. You need a slight understanding of the underlying joins. Also, the syntax keeps changing (at least between Rails versions). But I think that if you teach engineers some tactics to use them, they are overall better than trying to cobble together SQL strings (or at best using some SQL-hiding DSL like Arel).