[nine_k]

IMHO, ORMs are a wrong abstraction. Full-fledged objects are a wrong abstraction of the data in more cases than not.

The right tool is a wrapper / DSL over SQL, which allows to interact with the database in a predictable and efficient way, while not writing placeholder-ridden SQL by hand. Composable, typesafe, readable.

ORMs do fine in small applications without performance requirements. The further you go from that, the less adequate an ORM becomes, and the more you have to sidestep and even fight it, in my experience.

[manigandham]

Do you have an example of the right tool? SQL is already a DSL and I can't see how creating another language isn't just adding more overhead without actually getting you to usable objects.

The only reason objects are the "wrong" abstraction is because they don't match relational models exactly. That impedance mismatch is the entire reason for the object-to-relational mapping, otherwise you can use things like document-stores and just serialize your objects directly.

[nine_k]

SQLAlchemy gives a nice composable DSL in Python; it has an ORM layer on top of it, too, but it's optional.

JOOQ allows for composable typesafe SQL in Java.

[jsumrall]

+1 for jOOQ!