[PaulHoule]

I'd point to the difference between vector-based vs scalar-based systems in numerics. If your web programming language is more like MATLAB or APL than PHP than maybe it can naturally generate the code to do it all with sets. As it is we are usually writing set-based implementations in scalar-based languages.

Part of the "object-relational mapping" problem has always been that SQL is superior to conventional programming languages in many ways.

[9rx]

Of course, the "object-relational mapping" problem is simply that of latency. In the theoretical world where latency isn't a thing, there is no such thing as the "object-relational mapping" problem. In the real world where you have something like SQLite, it isn't a practical problem either.

SQL was originally designed to run on the same machine as the user, so it was never envisioned as a problem. It wasn't until Oracle decided to slap networking protocols on top of an SQL engine did it become one. Unfortunately, they should have exposed a language more conducive to the limitations of the network, performing the mapping in the same place as the database. But, such is the life of commercial computing.

Oracle has that now, it was just several decades too late, and by that time everyone else had copied their bad ideas.