[9rx]

> EF is limited to binary relationships

But due to the constraints of its querying abilities, not the ORM aspect. ORM is only concerned with the data once it is materialized. How you materialize that data, be it the product of a network relationship, or a fact-oriented model, is immaterial. Remember, EF isn't just an ORM toolkit. It is an ORM toolkit plus a number of other features. But since we're only talking about ORM those other features don't relate to the discussion.

> while structs and pointers are naïvely easy to understand, that's why ORMs remain popular.

And, well, because it is an all-round good idea to turn externally-sourced data models into internal data models anyway. It makes life a hell a lot easier as things start to change over time. Even if you were to receive serialized data that is shaped exactly in the structure you want it at a given moment in time, you still would want to go through a mapping process to provide the clean break from someone else's data model and your own. This isn't limited to SQL database tables. You'd do the same if you received, say, JSON from a web service.