Looking at the state of ORM's these days, I'm not very happy. It's hard for me to get excited about them because they make me do work that I don't want to do. Specifically, they force me to specify table relationships manually. Ick.
I usually work in an environment where the tables are already set, and I'm just munging existing data in some way, shape or form. What I really want is an ORM that can figure out the existing table relationships on its own (with the option to be explicit if needed). In fact, I want an ORM that map out a whole schema for me. The existing ORM's mostly seem to be "top down", i.e. creating the db from scratch. I need a "bottom up" ORM. (Note: I may have these terms mixed up).
Is it possible? Yes. Heck, if a tool like TOAD can generate a nice UML-like diagram with all the relationships laid out with little arrows and such, we ought to be able to do this on the ORM side. Will it be difficult? Yes. Very. I don't see any way around vendor specific issues. And it would require hiding some ugly sql behind the scenes. But I don't care. As long as it just works.
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