SQL: Requires your vendor to wrap in basic programming constructs or wrapping the SQL yourself in the code of your choice. No ability to create dynamic functi

SQL: Requires your vendor to wrap in basic programming constructs or wrapping the SQL yourself in the code of your choice. No ability to create dynamic functions on the fly. Why can't I do something like: SELECT something, {some custom function here()} FROM sometable GROUP BY something I almost want something macro like in there. I previously worked on apps that had fluid, ever-changing business rules. Where you might read in several range values to check some other set of values for inclusion in that range, count the values in the range, or average them, or check them for thresholds, etc. In Oracle, you can easily write your own custom grouping function, but you can't do it on the fly. I probably should have written the code to dynamically parse the intended SQL and build the dynamic SQL and custom function on the fly. Live and learn. Analytic function windowing. Every time, I have to re-grok exactly how to do it properly. Hierarchies. SQL sucks for doing this simply. I've used proprietary stuff (CONNECT BY in Oracle) and built my own nested set models as well. Both are fun technically and work, but are hell to support - during code reviews and sessions I see the eyes start to glaze over whenever I've dealt with hierarchies in SQL.