ORM is helpful to simplify the interface to your database. As a drawback it can have very bad performance compared to writing SQL manually. In this talk I'll present a different approach which combines best of both worlds: a simple interface ánd good performance. The framework I created for this purpose is called TinyQueries.

TinyQueries is currently being tested by the Vrije Universiteit. Preliminary results are promising and show that TQ is close to writing SQL manually which is the optimal performance possible.

In the talk I'll give examples of writing queries in Propel or CakePHP and compare them to equivalent queries written as a Tiny Query. Furthermore I'll show how you can use TinyQueries as an alternative for document stores like MongoDB and how you can build RESTful API's with it.

After the talk you will be able to:
- when ORM's are OK to use and when not
- have a better understanding of why ORM's are slow
- try out and play with TinyQueries and see if it might suit into your own projects