SQL sucks (as a relational language)

I remember about 6 years ago I was in a huge debate with the Iwethey croud where I claimed cursor-oriented (semi-procedural) database manipulation was "better" because it closer fit the way (most) humans think. Others complained about such approach not being machine-optimizable because it loses its "mathability". My POV was that being human-friendly was more important than auto-optimization. (Many OO'ers even say they want to "wrap the persistence mechanism[1] and ugly SQL strings" to avoid having to deal with SQL.)

After thinking long and hard, I decided that the "anti-imperative" people were generally right. However, what sold me was that I realized SQL sucks as a relational language. It is not relational algebra itself that is necessarily human-unfriendly, it is SQL's view of it. Thus, I set out to create what I feel would be a more human-friendly (and meta-friendly) relational language that allows one to better decompose big problems into many smaller ones and reference the parts by names instead of the run-on nesting of SQL. SQL is fine for small, simple queries, but gets ugly real fast as things get trickier.

[1] RDBMS are far more than just about "persistence".

Post #211,876 by tablizer 6/21/05 2:16:46 AM 6/21/05 2:18:03 AM Reply	SQL sucks (as a relational language) I remember about 6 years ago I was in a huge debate with the Iwethey croud where I claimed cursor-oriented (semi-procedural) database manipulation was "better" because it closer fit the way (most) humans think. Others complained about such approach not being machine-optimizable because it loses its "mathability". My POV was that being human-friendly was more important than auto-optimization. (Many OO'ers even say they want to "wrap the persistence mechanism[1] and ugly SQL strings" to avoid having to deal with SQL.) After thinking long and hard, I decided that the "anti-imperative" people were generally right. However, what sold me was that I realized SQL sucks as a relational language. It is not relational algebra itself that is necessarily human-unfriendly, it is SQL's view of it. Thus, I set out to create what I feel would be a more human-friendly (and meta-friendly) relational language that allows one to better decompose big problems into many smaller ones and reference the parts by names instead of the run-on nesting of SQL. SQL is fine for small, simple queries, but gets ugly real fast as things get trickier. [1] RDBMS are far more than just about "persistence". ________________ oop.ismad.com Edited by tablizer June 21, 2005, 02:18:03 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #211,904 by ChrisR 6/21/05 10:39:45 AM Reply	Perhaps you need to get out of the design and... ...into the implementation phase. Either that, or convince Date & Darwin that your pet language is the way to go.
Post #211,954 by tablizer 6/21/05 3:06:20 PM Reply	Some convergence perhaps Re: Either that, or convince Date & Darwin that your pet language is the way to go. Date and I chose [infix] because we thought it was better for teaching purposes, but we have had cause to regret it and would probably switch to prefix notation if we could start again from scratch. -- Hugh Darwen Perhaps you need to get out of the design and...into the implementation phase I have started working on an XBase demo implementation of my proposed language, but keep dragging my feet when it comes to finishing it. ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #211,955 by boxley 6/21/05 3:20:32 PM Reply	sounds like you would be happy doing MAS90 All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #211,963 by mmoffitt 6/21/05 4:35:39 PM Reply	Wow. That's harsh. ;0) bcnu, Mikem It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
Post #211,977 by boxley 6/21/05 6:03:18 PM Reply	its straight forward, lucrative and he enjoys the language All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett [link\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/\|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/] Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #211,985 by broomberg 6/21/05 6:53:22 PM Reply	You are writing a language IN xBase? Of course you'll never finish it!
Post #211,990 by tablizer 6/21/05 8:04:39 PM Reply	I am sort of pushing off parsing issues to something else ________________ oop.ismad.com

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