the current tutorial and quickstart guide should make it exceedingly clear, how is it that people are still confused?

this is the quickstart:

https://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/20/orm/quickstart.html

that's the one you use. That's it! There is no other style listed there

lots of people still want to use other styles or still have to because they have legacy code. So these are documented also. However, SQLAlchemy wants you to use the style at:

https://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/20/orm/quickstart.html

that's the only style we would have if we were starting now.