I read the article. The guy claims that SQL is hard -- yes it is hard for real life cases and there are limitations imposed by underlying theory (relational algebra). Joining the table with itself may be little mind-blowing when you do it first time. It still does not mean that we need to write queries in different language and translate them back to SQL.

A simple question is "how the hell you use prepared statements with such libraries"? And the answer will be is that the FRAMEWORK need to be extended further in order to support them. In other words once you abandon SQL you will never have the same flexibility that it gives, because of artificial constraints imposed by every framework. And your code will become more and more complex because of all these frameworks that are invented not of the real need but as an programming exercise.