Are we creating a generation of dumbed-down developers?

November 1st, 2013 | by ViaDataWebAdmin |

Object Relational Mappers (ORM) are creating dumbed-down developers!

The aim of most ORM approaches is to hide the SQL from the developer – making it possible to develop for SQL databases without ever writing any SQL.  I believe this is resulting in a generation of dumbed-down developers who have no real understanding of the data structures that support their business systems.

Since 2005 we have been building and refining an architecture, framework and business applications that go in complete reverse to the trend to reduce the amount of SQL written by developers.  We use meta data stored in the DB and SQL Stored Procedures, Functions and Views to implement ALL business rules.

SQL is one of the most simple languages to teach, encourages a clear understanding of the data structures and is by far the most efficient way to manipulate relational databases.  This approach allows for easy scaling, hosted services, deployment to Web and mobile and upgrades to the front-end technologies without ever changing the business rules. It does make us 100% dependent on SQL Server but we don’t believe that is a bad dependency.