I think jOOQ is a little more heavyweight. It introspects your database and builds a Java class structure that reflects the schema. More typesafe, certainly, but more of a commitment.
I think that's his point. Usually you know how far you want to go and the question is, how much gas will it take. For example, I know my car gets 8 L/100km. If I want to go 400kms, I can quickly figure out that's 32L, or about 2/3s of my 48L tank. Doing this calculation with mpg requires division.