SQL is the right tool for the job! I replied to tell you that fewer and fewer people think that way....which is terrifying. "Elegant" solutions are judged as such, by their ability to avoid SQL. It's not a hard language, why is everyone trying to avoid it at the expense of their applications speed and simplicity?

When I post job adverts, a large portion of applicants balk at the SQL questions: "just use PDO, or ActiveRecord, or ADO, or SQLAlchemy". Which is fine, if they can explain the difference between inner, outer, left/right joins - and they can't. SQL will be the next COBOL at this rate, or at least I hope so for selfish and monetary reasons.