<i>And the weird side-effect is that you can now write it somewhat as SQL: User.select().from().where(), etc., which conceivably could help those new to the framework.</i><p>which kind of defeats (part of) the point of it being a sql abstraction layer, doesn't it?  granted, most of activerecord's backends are for sql servers, but now adding a sql-like syntax to other generic (nosql?) backends seems kind of confusing.<p>personally i wish they'd just keep find() and all the old methods for compatibility.  the new stuff is neat but i don't see the point in deprecating and then actually removing the old things that have been around for many years.