ORMed and Dangerous | Ep 7

TypeScript.fm - The Friendly Show for TypeScript Developers

This week Kamran and Erik discuss when ORMs are helpful... or hurtful. They cover trade-offs, the spectrum of abstraction, the value of escape hatches, and the options available to you in the TypeScript ecosystem.

Week of February 17, 2025

• (05:54) - News: Ember 6.2 Released
• (07:16) - News: Deno 2.2 Released
  • npm-check-updates package
  • Package JSON Upgrade VS Code extension
  • https://github.com/vuki656/package-info.nvim for Neovim

Community Highlights

• (16:48) - Community Highlights: UseTypeScript for Your Stored Procedures?!
• (17:20) - Community Highlights: Node API Compatibility Across Runtimes
• (17:58) - Community Highlight: Why Type Catalogs Can Be Better Than Unions
• (19:05) - Community Highlight: tapi.js Automatically Maps JSON to Strongly-Typed Classes
• (20:33) - Community Highlight: Standard Schema Hopes to Align TS Validator Libraries
• (21:34) - Community Highlight: 2ality: Read-only accessibility in TypeScript

Deep Dive: TypeScript ORMs

• (22:56) - Deep Dive: TypeScript ORMs
• (24:21) - Deep Dive: Code-first or Database-first?
• (25:42) - Deep Dive: What Pain Do ORMs Solve?
• (27:21) - Deep Dive: When Should You Use an ORM?
  • Martin Fowler's ORM Hate article
  • Primeagen's Don't Use an ORM reaction video
• (30:02) - Deep Dive: To Use An ORM Or Not to Use an ORM?
• (31:47) - Deep Dive: SQL Builders vs. Abstracted ORMs
• (32:28) - Deep Dive: Do You Have An Escape Hatch?
• (33:36) - Deep Dive: Are ORMs A Symptom of Poor Data Architecture?
• (37:01) - Deep Dive: TypeScript ORM Landscape
• (37:26) - Deep Dive: Drizzle ORM
  • Fireship's Drizzle in 100 seconds
  • Works with Deno, Bun, Node.js
• (42:06) - Deep Dive: Prisma ORM
  • Works with Deno (unofficially) and Node.js
  • Prisma is being rewritten in TypeScript
• (46:42) - Deep Dive: MikroORM
• (49:10) - Tangent: Kamran and Erik Exchange War Stories
• (50:48) - Deep Dive: MikroORM Continued
• (51:44) - Deep Dive: TypeORM
• (53:06) - Deep Dive: ConvexDB
• (55:00) - Deep Dive: sequelize
• (55:48) - Deep Dive: Other Alternatives
  • Objection.js
  • Knex.js
  • Waterline
  • Bookshelf
  • Mongoose/Typegoose
• (56:33) - Deep Dive: Takeaways / tl;dl

Secrets of the Handbook

• (57:47) - Branded / Nominal Types
  • TypeScript Playground Example – Nominal Typing
  • 400-comment GH issue on different ways to do nominal typing and trade-offs
  • Michael Zalecki blog post on nominal types in TypeScript
  • Branded Types from Learning TypeScript by Josh Goldberg
  • Created a "sealed" method/class (example from Excalibur)

Links

• (01:04:25) - Cool Stuff: Kodaps Academy on Drizzle Versus Prisma
• (01:05:10) - Cool Stuff: jet Validators
• Reference: https://blog.logrocket.com/best-typescript-orms/
• Reference: https://www.sitepoint.com/javascript-typescript-orms/
• Reference: https://www.timsanteford.com/posts/choosing-the-best-typescript-orm-for-your-project/

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