You don't need an ORM - Giacomo Cavalieri | Lambda Days

[CodeSync]

You don’t need an ORM - Giacomo Cavalieri | Lambda Days 2025

You don't need an ORM - Giacomo Cavalieri | Lambda Days 2025

This talk was recorded at Lambda Days in June 2025. If you’re curious about our upcoming event, check https://lambdadays.org

You don’t need an ORM

Using SQL from other programming languages can prove to be quite the hassle: wrangling the database rows into the host’s language types is tedious and error-prone, and making sure the application code stays up to date with the ever-changing database schema is just as challenging.

To address these developer experience shortcomings ORMs try to shield the developer from ever having to write any SQL at all. This doesn’t feel totally satisfying though: as developers we are always keen on using the right language for the job, so what would it look like to fully embrace SQL instead of trying to abstract it away?

In this talk we’ll look at Squirrel, a library that tackles database access in Gleam: a functional, statically-typed language. We’ll explore how code generation from raw SQL can help bridge the gap between the database and a functional language without compromising on type-safety, performance or developer experience.

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