I started with AR for Jotbot (my desktop JRuby app), but it had assorted funkiness that made using outside of a gem environment too annoying, so I gave up. (Gem code should not have 'require "rubygems"' littered about. )

I had been using Sequel with Web apps already, and when I needed to add adapter code for the Java H2 DB it was pretty straightforward, plus Jeremy was quite helpful.

Besides, Sequel always felt more like Ruby than AR.

Big props to Jeremy and team for a sweet library.

(Just wish it had a different name. :) )