ORM transfer

I'm reading a post by Brian Kotek today and came across a link to another blog about ORM. I have been hearing about ORMs for a long time, i recall when Tracy Logan, a former co-worked and extremely talented programmer, brought this up a couple years ago. Something about Transfer automatically generating cfcs for you and basic SQL. My initial reaction was defensive "why would i want a program that does my job for me? - thats my job". I suspect that is a typical reaction when one does not really understand something, disparage it since you do not understand it. Anyway, I have heard other coldfusion developers talking about ORMs in the past but it has remained to me an abstract concept.

Today, when i when to this Transfer ORM site, i was ready to listen. The high level statement about developing OO web applications was very succinct.

"When developing an Object Oriented web based application, it is normal to have a database with relational tables and a series of objects that represent that data."

First off, i did not know that Transfer was written for ColdFusion, i learned that ORM means "Object Relational Mappers". It may be that until now, my OO skills where lacking and i was not ready to see this for what it is. It may also be that i am currently not doing much new development, most is refactoring. I will take the same approach i have regarding OO design, machii, coldspring, design patterns - slow and in small bits. I think too that once you have *struggled with CFC plumbing in DAOs and Gateways and experienced enough create, edit, delete, read method writing including the tedious SQL then you are ready to see this type of tool as an asset.

Just the intangible gain of having worked with an ORM is valuable. There is always something to glean when trying new technologies.