Re: The tragedy of SQL

On 9/14/21 12:51 PM, Mladen Gogala wrote:
> Replies in-line
> 
> On 9/14/21 01:51, Guyren Howe wrote:
>> They are making a decent decision. SQL is a *fucking terrible* 
>> language, which I don’t blame them for not wanting to learn.
> 
> Based on what criteria?
> 
> 
>>
>> The whole industry, programming languages, infrastructure, everything 
>> would have developed differently if relations were a natural, 
>> pleasurable thing to use in any programming language. Like an Array, 
>> or a Hash.
> 
> Thee is nothing natural about either relations or arrays and 
> hashes/dictionaries. Relations are pretty literal implementation of the 
> basic set theory. Having a decent understanding of the basic set theory 
> is a condition  for understanding SQL. Now, we can discuss whether a 
> language implementing a mathematical theory is "good" or "bad", whatever 
> the meaning of "good" or "bad" in the given context. Historically, SQL 
> is a good fit for the banking business and accounting and that is why it 
> is still around.
> 

I can see what you are saying. Still as someone that comes from a 
biology background and a basic understanding of math I will say SQL has 
a broader appeal. All those years of memorizing organism classifications 
inadvertently led me to set theory; 'all dogs are animals, not all 
animals are dogs'. Also, time spent identifying plants/critters via 
dichotomous keys led me to boolean logic. The upshot is that once I got 
involved with SQL databases the basics made sense. The details I am 
still learning.

> 
> -- 
> I'll speak the key, the whole key and nothing but the key, so help me Codd.
> Mladen Gogala
> Database Consultant
> Tel: (347) 321-1217
> https://dbwhisperer.wordpress.com
> 


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Adrian Klaver
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