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by zak_mc_kracken 4336 days ago
ORM is "Object Relational Mapper".

If you are taking data out of a relational database and mapping it into objects, you are implementing an ORM.

Seems like I'm sticking to the exact definition of an ORM, aren't I?

1 comments

> If you are taking data out of a relational database and mapping it into objects, you are implementing an ORM.

No, ORM is a particular approach to doing that; the query abstraction approach described upthread is closer to the DAO pattern, to which ORM is an alternative. People were using RDBMSs to provide a persistence layer for OO programs before ORM was a thing, but as you have broadened the term any use of an RDBMS to store/retrieve data used in an OO program would be "ORM".

Now you're the one using a nonstandard definition of ORM. Here is how Wikipedia defines it:

    Object-relational mapping (ORM, O/RM, and O/R mapping)
    in computer science is a programming technique for
    converting data between incompatible type systems
    in object-oriented programming languages.
"is a technique for" does not mean "includes every technique for".

Spearfishing is a technique for catching fish, but not every technique for catching fish is spearfishing.