Recommended reading

I thought that ORMs were all but dead, but leaving my bubble in a product company populated with peers I've found out that this is not the case. Some are even claiming the world is moving towards more ORM! The horror!

Well, I take comfort in the fact that I am not alone in my views regarding Object Relational Mapping, see for example Historical Perspective of ORM and Alternatives by Kenneth Downs. I especially like this quote from the article:

There are plenty of alternatives to ORM, but I would contend that they begin with a different world view. Good business recognizes the infinite value of the users as the generators of the Almighty Paycheck, and the database as the permanent record of a job well done.

This worldview forces us into a humble position with respect to our own application code, which is that it is little more than a waiter, carrying orders to the kitchen and food back to the patrons. When we see it this way, the goal becomes to write code that can efficiently get data back and forth.

This is a point I am planning to elaborate on myself in a future post.