> The proper way to build a data layer is one query at a time, as a string, with string interpolation.
That seems like a false dilemma? Yes, ORM is garbage. But that doesn't mean you can't represent SQL in your host language by eg at least it's AST or something else more sophisticated than strings.
If your host language has a rich enough type system, you can even type your tables in a way that's understood by both SQL and your host language. (But that's not too easy. Even mighty Haskell struggles a bit to give JOIN a proper generic type.)
That seems like a false dilemma? Yes, ORM is garbage. But that doesn't mean you can't represent SQL in your host language by eg at least it's AST or something else more sophisticated than strings.
If your host language has a rich enough type system, you can even type your tables in a way that's understood by both SQL and your host language. (But that's not too easy. Even mighty Haskell struggles a bit to give JOIN a proper generic type.)