[steverb]

Another plug for Dapper. I tell people it's an ORM for developers who aren't afraid of SQL. It doesn't hide the database, or force you to pretend it's not there. It excels at taking your rows of data and transmogrifying them to objects.

[daigoba66]

> transmogrifying

Also known as "mapping"; the literal purpose of an ORM. :)

Other big tools/frameworks include APIs for query generation, unit of work, caching, etc., which are not always necessary or desired.

[mmgutz]

Data mappers map tables to objects.

ORM's compensate for the impedance mismatch between objects and tables. They do a lot more than mapping.