<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mikermcneil&#x2F;waterline2&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;Introduction%20to%20Waterline2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mikermcneil&#x2F;waterline2&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;Introd...</a><p>^^ after spending several man years of effort on the subject, that&#x27;s the inevitable boundary in ORM development, IMHO.  It was this that made me realize that we needed to be focused on providing a better, cleaner way to allow running custom queries using a declarative, database-agnostic syntax, rather than focusing on implementing even-deeper support for xD&#x2F;A queries.<p>Also I don&#x27;t mean to nitpick, but I&#x27;m hearing a lot of negativity towards Waterline from a couple of the commenters in this thread, and I&#x27;m not clear on how it lines up with specific, actionable criticism that I or the rest of the core team can do anything about.  I get that having to use a framework or stack for work when you aren&#x27;t excited about it is horrible (it was originally how I felt about Grails and Hibernate when I was using them every day in 2011).<p>But I think it&#x27;s important to keep in mind that this is always &quot;compared to what&quot;.  The Java ecosystem has had years to develop tools for working with data, and it certainly still provides more mature utilities out of the box than you&#x27;re going to get as someone new to the Node world, even today.  But I firmly believe in the power and flexibility of JavaScript-- not because it&#x27;s a good language or anything-- but because we all had to learn it to do front-end development in the browser.  And so will the next generation of developers.<p>Whether we like it or not, Node.js is here to stay.  And for me, that&#x27;s a tremendously exciting thought.  A future with the world sharing a common programming language is a goal worth fighting for.  It&#x27;s a future that dramatically lowers the barrier to entry to full stack web development, and vastly expands the pool of people willing and able to contribute to free and open-source technology.<p>Hang in there :)