> Because ORM libraries were invented 30 years ago.

> There is no requirement to learn SQL for most of the applications built today.

In the same way that because Linked List libraries were invented 50 years ago, there is no requirement to learn what linked lists are for most of the applications built today?

You aren't getting past the requirement to learn relational databases "because ORM", and there is no material or course that teaches relational databases without teaching SQL.

The unfortunate result of this is that people who boast about knowing $ORM while not knowing SQL have never learned relational databases either.

ORM doesn't really excuse you from understanding what's going on. In a way using ORM is more difficult because you have to understand both what sql you want and how to get the framework to generate it for you.

Of course there's a lot of incompetent people who have no idea what they're doing, if it seems to work they ship it. That leads to a lot of nonsensical bullshit and unnecessarily slow systems.

Most applications dont need to get data from a relational database. But for those apps that do, knowing SQL is pretty much a must have. The developer himself or someone on the team.

Depends how good you want the application to be