In the java-world there are libraries like JDBI, which makes it possible to write interfaces with SQL-annotations and have serialization, connection setup etc. done for you:

    public interface UserDao {
        @SqlUpdate("CREATE TABLE user (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name VARCHAR)")
        void createTable();

        @SqlUpdate("INSERT INTO user(id, name) VALUES (?, ?)")
        void insertPositional(int id, String name);

        @SqlQuery("SELECT * FROM user ORDER BY name")
        @RegisterBeanMapper(User.class)
        List<User> listUsers();
    }

This is great because it's explicit. No hidden queries.