I'm using kysely with a database that has quite a few complex functions, etc. Lots of queries that require CTEs and so on. It's fantastic. Type safety with the codegen is amazing and catches a tremendous amount of simple bugs and typos which are super easy to make in raw SQL strings.

People talking about writing raw SQL have never maintained a large project. Once you start string concatting queries and trying to remember which table aliases are which you're halfway to writing a custom, buggy query builder without type safety. It's a trap for young players.

> It's a trap for young players.

As someone with 25 years of experience using lots of ORMs and query builders in both Java and JavaScript/Typescript, I believe the exact opposite to be true. There are libraries now that let you write composable, safe SQL with type guarantees (I am a big fan of Slonik, but there are other libraries).

Every single time I've seen an ORM or query builder used for application software, eventually I see it becoming a big headache for operations. It usually makes debugging and and performance investigations more difficult, and I so often see developers "fighting with the tool" when they're just trying to get it to output the SQL they want it to.

In my experience, people who are fans of ORMs and query builders never have had to deal with significant scale and the operational difficulties that come with it (and I'm not talking about "Google scale", either, I'm just talking about a reasonably well known consumer site with moderately heavy traffic at times).