I had to deal with it, when I hadto parse Transac-SQL code, and it's not handy. Very difficult to have a single executable file containing everything, it needs a whole subtree.
OCaml is easier with Opam and ocamlbuild tools.
I use to write complex SQL query very usually, and I can say that it's far more concise than imperative code.
Compared to it's own semantics, SQL is actually verbose, but its semantics is so powerful that you gain size.
I think most of the problems come from insufficient semantic power of actual language. Most programming language, even the most advanced don't manage time, don't manage locality, and don't fit in the brain representation human makes of the code.
It's remarkably explained by Blackwell in his paper "Metaphors we Program By: Space, Action and Society in Java"
https://www.ppig.org/papers/2006-ppig-18th-blackwell/
So frameworks try to manage this gap, and the only solution, IMO, is to invent language that integrate more advanced semantics to avoid the necessity of frameworks
15 years ago I had the lighnight idea to interview my grandfather who join the french resistance during the WWII. I interviewed him about the life before the war, in the country and his experience during the war, when he had to become clandestine in his own country because he didn't joined the mandatory german working program (STO). It's the most concrete thing we keep from him, and I just regret I didn't interview him more.