[sam_lowry_]

In Java, the sweet spot is JDBCTemplate. Projects based on JDBCTemplate succeed effortlessly while teams muddle through JPA projects.

It is not that JPA is inherently bad, it's just that such projects lack strong technical leadership.

[listenallyall]

I believe jOOQ is Java's database "sweet spot". You still have to think and code in a SQL-ish fashion (its not trying to "hide" any complexity) but everything is typed and it's very easy to convert returned records to objects (or collections of objects).