ORM isn't a pattern. Most people complaining about ORM libraries are complaining about Active Record. I thus automatically assume anyone making this claim is mi

ORM isn't a pattern. Most people complaining about ORM libraries are complaining about Active Record. I thus automatically assume anyone making this claim is misinformed, and roll my eyes. Active Record is a pattern. Ruby's ActiveRecord and Django's ORM are implementations of that pattern. The Active Record pattern has some of the problems mentioned in this article, with convenience being the major benefit. Data Mapper is another pattern. Python's SQLAlchemy and Java's Hibernate are implementations of that pattern. These will get you a lot farther without bumping into limitations. And honestly, I've written some terribly ugly queries in SQLAlchemy and it still worked. I've even started with an ugly query I wanted to make in raw SQL and then made sure that it was possible using just the library and no SQL strings.