this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023

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I wish writing SQL queries was more popular than ORMs (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Some backend libraries let you write SQL queries as they are and deliver them to the database. They still handle making the connection, pooling, etc.

ORMs introduce a different API for making SQL queries, with the aim to make it easier. But I find them always subpar to SQL, and often times they miss advanced features (and sometimes not even those advanced).

It also means every time I use a ORM, I have to learn this ORM's API.

SQL is already a high level language abstracting inner workings of the database. So I find the promise of ease of use not to beat SQL. And I don't like abstracting an already high level abstraction.

Alright, I admit, there are a few advantages:

if I don't know SQL and don't plan on learning it, it is easier to learn a ORM
if I want better out of the box syntax highlighting (as SQL queries may be interpreted as pure strings)
if I want to use structures similar to my programming language (classes, functions, etc).

But ultimately I find these benefits far outweighed by the benefits of pure sql.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I usually use them only for very basic cruds operations. For everything else I just write raw sql.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

and how you run your tests? Do you spawn a DB backend for test purposes?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As another option in this case:

I've been able to write unit tests for SQL within the database to address testing important business logic that exists in SQL. The test fixtures just become stored (version controlled) database scripts to set needed test data in place in the test DB. Then we still mock over the db call in the code for unit tests as usual.

It's more effort up front, but I find it much easier to maintain complex DB interactions inside the DB, isolated from the downstream consumer code.

Obviously, there's an art to knowing when this is needed, or appropriate. I've worked for organizations where almost everything important was a performant SQL query. In that org, maintenance got dramatically simpler and the product more reliable when we started writing SQL tests after moving important DB work directly into the DB.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t like traditional ORM’s but I really enjoy using jooq. Statically typed queries are great with this library.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

jOOQ is really the best of both worlds. Just enough of an ORM to make trivial CRUD operations trivial, but for anything beyond that, the full expressive power of SQL with added compile-time type safety.

And it's maintained by a super helpful project lead, too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In my experience. ORM has its limitations.

You can only depend on ORM upto a point. Beyond that you have to go use Arel (relationship algebra in Ruby), execute prepared SQL statement, trigger and functions.

I use ORM for concise, easier to read and maintainable code. e.g. joining three or more tables in SQL is cumbersum and verbose. Writing related multiple query is too time consuming, etc.

I learnt from relational algebra, SQL, ORM to vendor specific SQL.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Many-to-many associations are a pain to manage without an ORM.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Dapper.net is the right balance imo.. you get the shape the query and get object field mapping.

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