[alex_duf]

The more I look at programs that generate SQL, the more I think we should just learn how to write proper SQL.

Layers are just hiding things, and when you hide it, bad things happen.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I've been wondering the same thing.

But I don't have any real world experience writing software that actually ends up being used with different databases.

I may use all these abstractions, but really we just use Postgres or MySQL in the end.

[threeseed]

The entire software industry is built on layers that hide things.

In 99% of cases you don't need to write SQL in order to deliver business functionality. Just like we don't need to write low level machine code in 99% of cases.

[clubhi]

You should look at proper SQL. It looks horrible.

One benefit a layer can add is the ability to optimize post compilation. Most of the fancy pants Hadoop libraries are doing this one way or another.