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same developers don't like SQL because it's complicated (or rather they don't understand it) and end up using an ORM mess.

yes still SQL is everywhere

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I was under the impression the primary use for ORM isn't because SQL is complicated (it really is not) but rather because it is embedded in strings and therefore un-testable and opaque to the compiler.

And the complexity of SQL to someone who already codes is marginal. Here in Excel we are talking about the complexity to someone with no coding experience.

The motive behind ORM is in the name: it is to Map Objects to Relations.

The promise is that a Java (then Ruby) developer, could simply design the objects needed for the program, and the fields which need to be persistent could be automatically mapped to the database using ORM.

The reality is quite different of course, there's a reason ORM is so widely derided. But ORM is more about skipping the bookkeeping involved in setting up persistence for application code, rather than testability or opacity of SQL.

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