that special Java/C# + ORM / (N)Hibernate + XML + SQL kind of development hell.
There isn't necessarily anything inherently wrong with Java, C#, ORMs, XML, or SQL. All are pretty useful ways to solve certain classes of problems, taken on their own.
That said, there are definitely "development hell" projects that feature all of those things, but I believe you can have "development hell" in any language, using any libraries, and any persistence technology.
And anyway, if you think writing C# or Java code is bad, trying writing RPG/400[1] using SEU[2] on an AS/400[3] sometime. That stuff'll leave you shuddering and sweating in your sleep, and walking around with a blank stare on your face, drooling and mumblng "Ia! Cthulhu Fthagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, %!@ ^^&!@(, (#!^H NOCARRIER".
Oh, yeah, no doubt. It's fun to make fun of mainframes, and IBM, etc., but the reality is that they invented a ton of ideas that are only just now migrating into the commodity hardware/software world, and/or consumer devices.
Developers in general would probably be well served to do a better job of acknowledging our own history and maintaining more awareness/context regarding what has come before.
There isn't necessarily anything inherently wrong with Java, C#, ORMs, XML, or SQL. All are pretty useful ways to solve certain classes of problems, taken on their own.
That said, there are definitely "development hell" projects that feature all of those things, but I believe you can have "development hell" in any language, using any libraries, and any persistence technology.
And anyway, if you think writing C# or Java code is bad, trying writing RPG/400[1] using SEU[2] on an AS/400[3] sometime. That stuff'll leave you shuddering and sweating in your sleep, and walking around with a blank stare on your face, drooling and mumblng "Ia! Cthulhu Fthagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, %!@ ^^&!@(, (#!^H NOCARRIER".
[1]: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r3/index....
[2]: http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v7r1m0/index.jsp?t...
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_i