The stuff I work on can have queries that pull data from more then a half dozen tables, and to convert our work to the yii framework is beyond a pain because of the level of abstraction with sql and activerecord.
Can we just use standard SQL statements as the language is intended? And if so, how will that effect everything else with the project in terms of an mvc architecture?
[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"][size="2"]Answer depends on the type of SQL queries.
If you want to pull a graph of related objects from the database, ActiveRecord can handle it with ease and at any level of complexity.[/size][/font]
If you need to run statistical queries with lots of calculated columns, GROUP BYs, UNIONs, etc. then DAO could be the answer. Or you can even bypass Yii’s database layer and use PDO or any other database extension directly, if needed.
You can still maintain an MVC architecture with raw SQL queries. It just means that a significant part of model logic has to be implemented in SQL instead of PHP, which reduces testability and reusability.