> SQL seems like a terrible language That's because idea of SQL was the same as COBOL - kinda-natural more or less ad-hoc end-user-oriented language. Codd ('R

> SQL seems like a terrible language That's because idea of SQL was the same as COBOL - kinda-natural more or less ad-hoc end-user-oriented language. Codd ('Relational Completeness of Data Base Sublanguages') - “Clearly, the majority of users should not have to learn either the relational calculus or algebra in order to interact with data bases. However, requesting data by its properties is far more natural than devising a particular algorithm or sequence of operations for its retrieval. Thus, a calculus-oriented language provides a good target language for a more user-oriented source language.”