Active record vs SQL

[eluser]Dave Stewart[/eluser]
HI there,
I'm pretty new to CI so willing to take on all opinions for a new way of working.

However, I can't really see the advantage of using Active Record over SQL for a lot of queries. I'm pretty handy with SQL, so can someone explain what I can't see?

In many cases the SQL is just easier to read in my view, and I would imagine certainly easier to debug, as you just dump it into phpMyAdmin or such like if your query fails.

Saying that, I haven't used AR yet, so I don't know.

So in what situation would I use the AR methods, and in what situations would I just use query($some_sql)?

Thanks,
Dave