[craigvn]

> You'll most likely end up implementing an ORM anyway,

This is a really good point. Many people start with the "no ORM" philosophy, realize their application needs some way to map the SQL to the code, time passes..., they have implemented their own half-baked ORM.

[hodgesrm]

A more positive spin is that you'll have an "ORM" that's exactly adapted to your application. Many apps (1) don't need to work with multiple DBMS types and (2) don't use even close to the full panoply of SQL features.

In a language like Java that has a generic DBMS API you can get along just fine with a few classes that handle CRUD operations and transaction management. Somebody familiar with JDBC and SQL can write the bridge classes in about a day, while keeping the overall application vastly simpler.

Either way somebody needs to make an informed choice about ORM vs. direct SQL. It seems as some people get in trouble because they skip that part of the design process.