What are the main advantages and disadvantages of using the Active Record pattern?

The Active Record pattern links an object to a database record, where the object contains methods for reading and writing data.

Advantages:

• Ease of use and understanding.
• Rapid development of CRUD operations.
• Well-suited for small applications with simple logic.

Disadvantages:

• Violation of the single responsibility principle (the object is responsible for both business logic and data access).
• Difficulties with testing due to tight coupling with the database.
• Challenges when working with complex business rules and relationships.

Example in Python using SQLAlchemy:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
from sqlalchemy import Column, Integer, String
from sqlalchemy.orm import sessionmaker

Base = declarative_base()

class User(Base):
    __tablename__ = 'users'
    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
    name = Column(String)

    def save(self, session):
        session.add(self)
        session.commit()

# Usage
# user = User(name='Alice')
# user.save(session)