[DarkNova6]

There is good value in having ORM for all those boring 90% data fetch tasks. It removes a whole lot of boilerplate and you can guarantee that your code representation equals database representation.

The actual problem here lies in the Active Record (anti) Pattern. It becomes impossible to distinguish in-memory access from db access. I’m not surprised to find this being particularly prevalent in dynamically typed scripting languages…

[chuckadams]

> The actual problem here lies in the Active Record (anti) Pattern. It becomes impossible to distinguish in-memory access from db access

I'm not a big fan of Active Record either, but conflating the two is pretty much the point. I think the biggest antipatterns around AR are in trying to treat it as a transparent abstraction rather than always being aware that it's more or less an "immediate mode" DB interface. Yes, you can treat your model objects as plain old domain objects here and there, but they don't stop being intimately tied to the database at all times, and you need proper DTOs and/or extra interfaces if such separation ever becomes important. But many apps don't have to care, and those are the ones where AR isn't such an albatross.

My main problem with AR is crappy implementations like Eloquent. No identity cache, so many methods and props on the Model base God Class that prevent using a column with that name, magic methods everywhere... Still, it serves all right as long as you treat it as a DB interface and not your canonical business object model.

[DarkNova6]

> But many apps don't have to care, and those are the ones where AR isn't such an albatross.

I am super defensive on this one. Apps can keep not caring about it... until they have to.

Is it that much more effort to have a clear boundary between domain and db-access? I think it is only effort if you don't know what you are doing... which is _precisely_ when you need it the most.

> Still, it serves all right as long as you treat it as a DB interface and not your canonical business object model.

I still don't get the benefits. If you decouple db-model from domain model you lose all "advantages" of AR. It's like having plain DTOs but with its sharp spikes sticking out if you ever do something wrong.

[chuckadams]

You're preaching to the choir here: I much prefer datamapper ORMs when I even want an ORM at all (I'm not quite the OOP astronaut I once was). I'm saying AR's poor design isn't a noticeable drag in small scopes, especially for short-lived models whose only purpose is to populate a view. It's like having really fancy DTOs, and keeping them in the DTO bin is what keeps you from getting stuck with all the sharp spikes. Life can be comfy in a minefield when you have a map and don't wander too much :)