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Time to read: ~ 3 minutes
I don’t know if this post is a rage against “database-ubiquitous” SQL or Object-Relational Mapping tools (ORMs)
I’m going to say that it’s a rant against the first because if you know what you are doing, then ORMs won’t be a performance concern
But people use ORMs instead of Stored Procedures because
Them: “what happens if we need to change databases? We don’t have to worry about that now cause they’ll be baked in the application, and we won’t have to recreate the Stored Procedures in the new database cause ORMs just work!”
Everything just works until it doesn’t
I’ve worked with several companies and heard this argument many times from developers
Part of why I’m ranting about database-ubiquitousness SQL instead of ORMs is that I’ve also witnessed SQL code that has to work everywhere
I’m going to call this SQL “DUh SQL” from now on since I only have so many vowels on my keyboard and shouldn’t waste them re-writing the word “ubiquitousness”
Them: “Nope, we can’t use DATEFROMPARTS; it’s not available in other databases! Yeah, we use GETDATE() everywhere; what’s your point? WHAT!?!”
I’ve moved across different cloud providers more than I’ve moved databases, and guess what? Each cloud provider move, we’ve kept the same database
I know that knowledge sharing “in the wild” says that you should use ORMs or DUh SQL
The route to a 10x engineer is paved in DRY, KISS, and SWALK
Well, maybe not SWALK
Them: “But the leading minds out there say that you should keep it DUh since that means it’ll be a breeze if we have to move databases”
Sure, and I’ve been told that ice baths help in recovery
I’m not going to take them, though, since I know there’s a difference between me trying to do a 5k and dedicated athletes!
I love arguing with people in my blog posts; I rarely lose
So, don’t use DUh SQL cause of reasons that may not apply to you
Don’t refuse performance tuning efforts if they’ll add database-specific code
And, please, learn to use your tools
Oh, and apologies for the lack of full-stops, I can’t use them in case I have to turn this post into regex
I agree with you that the remote possibility that you might change database platforms in the future is not a good argument for using ORMs rather than stored procedures and ignoring database-specific syntax that works better with your current database platform.
Thank you, Glenn!