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Using an ORM or plain SQL?
Would you elect to use an ORM or some kind of home spun DAL? And why?
The advantages of an ORM seem obvious – better structure / organization, better language fit etc. But I worry about performance issues. Anyone have war stories to share? Any insights on not so obvious risks or rewards would be much appreciated.
I’d use an ORM for exactly the reasons you mention.
They typically perform well. If there are performance issues in a certain area, you can always optimize that portion later, or switch to straight SQL if it truly helped, as the two technologies are not mutually exclusive.