The is exactly the way forward: encapsulation (the function), type safety, and dynamic/lazy query construction.

I'm building a new project, Typegres, on this same philosophy for the modern web stack (TypeScript/PostgreSQL).

We can take your example a step further and blur the lines between database columns and computed business logic, building the "functional core" right in the model:

  // This method compiles directly to a SQL expression
  class User extends db.User {
    isExpired() {
    return this.expiresAt.lt(now());
    }
  }

  const expired = await User.where((u) => u.isExpired());

Here's the playground if that looks interesting: https://typegres.com/play/