O/R-Ms - the Vietnam of computer science

The phrase is not mine but I totally agree with it. I found it on Jeff Atwood's blog, Coding Horror, one of the best programming blogs in my opinion.

I guess most of us (DBAs) have been in the situation to have more or less contradictory debates on object relational mapping (that is, the best solution to map a set to an object in an OO language like Java/C# etc).
Most of the developers that interact with a database, have mixed feelings about the SQL: some try to avoid it as much as possible (O/R-Ms mappings), some are really against it, very few try to learn at least some basic syntax.

I remember having this kind of conversion with an application architect. Even though he was an application architect, he considered SQL useless and thus, replaceable. He even advised me and my coworker to re-think our long term goals and career because SQL will disappear. Luckily for him, he was a friend of ours and also paid the check :)

Here is a great blog post from Jeremiah Peschka, which tries to stays reasonable about the debate, and will offer good arguments for these kinds of discussions: O/R-Ms: Panacea or Polio Braces?