ORM
Definition.
ORM: Object-Relational Mapping, a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems using object-oriented programming languages.
In More Detail
An ORM maps database rows to objects so most queries can be written in your application language, with the added benefit of parameterised queries by default — which removes the most common route to SQL injection.
The failure mode to watch is the N+1 query: a loop that looks like plain attribute access but issues one query per iteration. In Django, `select_related` and `prefetch_related` fix it, but only once you notice, which is why I check the query count on any page that renders a list.
In Practice
Django's ORM is one of the main reasons I default to Django for backends — it lets me write Python instead of raw SQL for most queries, while still allowing raw SQL for the specific queries where the ORM would generate something inefficient.
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